Masked
by Nightblade888
Summary: Naruto has a mask that he wears, not because his true self is weak or frightened, but because he has to fit in, if he can't...than his deepest secret will have to come to the light... Naruto in the theme of Dexter, rated for blood and themes
1. Chapter 1

**(Pre A/N: This story is rated M due to extreme mentions of blood and gore. This is my take on a kind of Naruto/Dexter cross over, there won't be any physical contact, but the characters will all be altered to fit the rules of the Dexter universe.)**

I will always remember the first memory I have of the Sandaime Hokage…my mind tends to wander when I get in these pensive moods of mine, and he is brought to the forefront of my mind often. There are so many pleasant ones, but that first meeting is the best of them all…

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

The old man looks at me with tired eyes. He seems every bit as old as I claim he is right now, and if I knew half of what I had just caused, I wouldn't blame him. But I'm only three, and right now I'm covered in blood, but for once it's not mine. He takes a moment to pull his favorite pipe from his robes and takes a long drag off the glowing embers held within before he turns to me again.

"Why? Can you tell me why you did that, Naruto-kun?" He asks me, a deep sadness held in his voice. Since I'm so young, my first instinct is to think that emotion is directed at me, and I lower my gaze and ball my fists tighter together. I'm hoping that if I ignore the question, he'll loose interest in me, like everyone else, however as usual, my luck isn't that good.

"I won't be angry Naruto, no matter what you say, but I need to know why."

My words come out so quietly that he can't here them. It's not a knock on his hearing; I'm just trying to hold onto my secret for even just a moment more. More politely and with infinitely more patience than any other adult I've ever encountered in my life, he prompts me once more, and I find myself unable to deny the kind man my answer.

"It was taking too long." I manage to work out. "And…and I just…I just had to do something! That older guy had taken that girl so long ago, that I just had to!" Though it was difficult for me to say, no tears fell from my eyes, there was no remorse in my voice. In all honesty, it had been too long, the feeling had been building inside me for so long now, and tonight, it just happened to find a release.

I had been outside in the cold, looking for somewhere, anywhere to go to sleep. It had been very late when I had been thrown from the orphanage and told that I would have to find my own place for the night. Perhaps tomorrow night they'd be able to save a bed for me, but tonight, what with the celebrations that had gone on earlier, my bed had been given to the first person who drunk themselves into a coma. I had found a spot between a dumpster and a trash can behind the restaurant across from the orphanage when it happened.

A man who had a black mask over his head ran into the street between me and the building I should be calling home. He had something over his shoulder and from the sound of things; a number of people were chasing him. He stopped for a moment and dropped whatever he had been carrying, his hands doing something I had never seen before, but he must have screwed up, because someone pushed his chest and he collapsed to the ground. They said something about retrieving 'Hinata-sama' or something like that, and picked the small bundle off the ground before disappearing.

At the time I was perfectly happy to stay where I was, but I kept my eyes on the figure of the guy who was still lying in the ground. He wasn't moving, but in the cold December air, I could see the steam rising from his breath and that was when it started. It was weak at first. Just a thought in my mind that said 'hey, this is very boring, wouldn't it be better if something happened?' But I ignored it and it started to grow stronger. After a tortured ten minutes of nothing but watching his breath escape his body, it was too much to bear. My legs were involuntarily bouncing and my hands had begun to shake. It was then that I snapped. I walked over, and just watched as this man continued to fight for his life. A kunai had been thrown at him by his pursuers earlier in his chase and was still sticking into the ground. I picked it up, knowing enough about this particular weapon not to grip the blade, but the cool handle that ended in the heavy ring for heft and balance.

"…too slow…too slow…too….slow!" It took me a moment to realize that I was the one repeating that mantra, not my company. It was like someone had taken control of my voice and was saying these things, like someone had taken over my body, yet I found myself agreeing with this new voice, not only agreeing, but liking what it said with every word, every repetition. I looked at the blade of the kunai, saw its keen edges and unblemished tip and then I looked at the poor soul's barely moving chest next to me. I had seen what had happened when the other man had merely pushed on his chest, what would happen if I pushed him too? What if I used the kunai I had just picked up? I was eager to find out!

It happened so very quickly, I pushed downward with my favorite instrument, just like I had seen minutes ago. Blood rushed up and outward, nearly exploding out into the cold air and covered me from head to toe. The hot liquid snapped me out of the haze I had been living with and only then did I notice that the incessant and obnoxious wheezing of my victim had subsided. That was when the Sandaime had arrived along with his personal attachment of ANBU. Me with blood spattered over every inch of my ragged clothing, a bloody knife in my hand and still stuck in the body of the Kumogakure ambassador, lying dead at my feet.

I was quickly set upon by the ANBU, easily restrained and drug into the office of the man who has mattered most in my life. He made me tell him about the feeling I had, both before my first murder, of the anxiousness and anger I had felt, and then afterwards, the joy and elation. Afterwards I just sat there, head down, and waited. I waited to be punished like I normally was, to be yelled at. Instead, the man who I had just met, over the body of the man I had just killed none the less, decided to help me…to give me an outlet. He explained that in the life of a ninja killing was a common occurrence. He explained that what I felt, while not what you could exactly consider 'normal', it did have a place and he offered to teach me about it. He called them hunter ninja, I called it a golden opportunity. He even promised that as long as I promised to follow some of his rules, I could even keep my new friend, as I had come to think of my inner voice.

The old man's first rule was that I would have to enter the ninja academy when I was old enough. That wouldn't be for another two years at the earliest, so until then, I would live with him and his wife, so he could help me understand the things I had done and would go on to do. Secondly, I was never to do what I had done to any one who lived in Konoha, no matter what my inner voice said, no matter how badly I wanted it, I was never to murder a Konoha citizen, shinobi or otherwise. The third rule was one I found rather easy to follow. Under no circumstance would I ever kill someone for no reason at all, or, as he explained it to me at my young age, 'don't kill someone just because you can, or just because it would be fun.' His final rule, the one I found much harder to follow when I was younger and yet indebted to the man as I was, I have never broken this rule, nor will I. It is the cornerstone of what has allowed me to become what I am today. 'Only judge those who are truly guilty.' Of course, these all paled in comparison to the most important rule of all. 'Don't get caught.'

He explained all of this to me and gradually my body relaxed as I accepted his offer. After I had agreed to his offer, he strode from behind his desk and gave me the first warm embrace I can remember in my life. As he pulled backwards, I felt him slide something into my hand. It's the knife, the instrument of my first kill. He's returned it to me, knowing full well what I plan on doing with it in the future, under his guidance no less. Maybe that's why I trust him most of all.

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

Though I have never broken those rules; that is not to say that there haven't been close calls. The most notable one was shortly after the other kids my age started the academy, on the day that Uchiha Itachi murdered his entire clan. I would normally avoid the Uchiha district because it held no particular interest or significance for me, but today the amount of killing intent coming from the many buildings has drawn me like a moth to a flame. The stronger the intent to kill is, the harder it is for me to resist, to hold back, and to abide by the laws that the old man gave me…to still my friend in my mind.

The streets are awash with bodies and blood; pools have formed under bodies as they lie still in death, while spray from arteries paints the woodwork. I shiver at the scene that lies before me. So many people…killed so quickly…I doubt that even in my wildest dreams I could equal how perfectly the one responsible for this has planned it out. That's when I spotted the first crack in my Eden. A small boy, probably three years younger than me lying on his back, not unlike my first kill, breathing shallowly…fighting for his life.

Looking back, it was probably a mixture of a number of things, the blood, the killer intent that laced the very air around us…but before I knew it, I was reaching into my back pouch and retrieving my kunai…_the_ kunai, it's become something of a good luck charm for me, as well as a trophy of that first experience. At first I just watch the boy fight and fight for what he believes is his, not knowing that right now, his life is out of his control. I'm not naïve enough to say that it's in mine right now, there are too many variables in the equation for me to say that, but each gasping, wheezing breath brings me that much closer to the edge, that much closer to breaking my word, possibly the heart of the one man who has cared for me. He breathes and I step forward. Another breath, another step and so goes the cycle until I am right next to the boy. A number of wounds have been inflicted upon his body, most likely from shuriken and even without my interference, he might not survive. The most serious wound comes from the clean dissection of his right arm from his body. This is another crack in the mystique I had originally viewed this scene in. I have no particular interest in torture or amputation. Admittedly, blood does have a certain place in my heart, but I have my own ways to indulge in that pleasure, torture goes against my true love, speed. It is fascinating to see both how fast one can die from bleeding out, and yet every kill is a test for me…how long can I extend the thrill, the joy of removing a piece of trash from this earth. It is a fine line I walk, and mutilation of a small boy has no pleasure for me. It is as close to a mercy killing as I will come, as I suddenly feel a presence emerging from a building near by and I am brought back to my senses.

What have I almost done? In one instance I've nearly broken every rule that Sarutobi has laid out for me, every one! My knife returns to its place at my hip and I scramble away in shame at my actions. My seven year old feet take me to the Hokage's office as fast as they can, not because I want to, but because I have to. He is the only one who knows what I am, how I think and, for lack of a better term, feel. Besides, he should probably be made aware of the situation anyway.

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

My grades in the academy are poor at best, but the Hokage doesn't seem to mind. He always tells me that for my field, I'm the closest thing to a genius you could hope to find. My classes are pretty boring, the teachers are nice enough, Iruka-sensei has taken a liking to me, probably because we are both orphans and Mizuki-sensei treats me like any other student, though he has times where he seems to take as much pleasure in my failure as the majority of the class.

My classmates are an eccentric group, ranging from emotionally stunted (both Uchiha Sasuke and Hyuuga Hinata) to overly secure (Inuzuka Kiba and Sasuke again) to the pitifully weak (Ninety nine percent of the girls in the class). Then there is Aburame Shino, who has managed to do something I envy. He has convinced the entire class that he has no emotion and dictates every move, everything he does, on logic. Early on in the game, Sarutobi taught me the importance of fitting in, of donning a mask. When I am alone and not in one of my more destructive moods, I am much more like Shino than anyone except my father figure knows. However, the emotionless façade doesn't allow one to blend in well, so instead of showing what would be considered ideal behavior for a ninja, I've worked painstakingly on a mask of happiness and care free naiveté.

It is this mask that I've displayed since I was three, this mask that has everyone fooled, this mask that Hyuuga Hinata has fallen for. I've know about her feelings for me, though I don't understand them, for a while. She has fallen for the part of the mask that refuses to be beaten, to get up, no matter what the odds. It's a shame, because of all the characteristics that are kept behind the mask and the few that bleed into it, the true me, has very little of that drive. I refuse to believe that there is anyone else out there who is as good at what they do as I am. I refuse to believe that I might fail Sarutobi and I _know_ that I can't fail the voice in my head. That's as far as the similarities go I'm afraid.

I just don't understand what she see's in my mask, or what any of the girls see in Sasuke. I am completely lost in that department, bonds that is. I don't understand why humans make bonds, or why they are important. The old man explained it to me once. I got part of it, that when you are doing things for someone else, you are able to accomplish things you never thought possible. Like how I can track and restrain chuunin twice my age when the old man asks me to. I refuse to fail him, and so I try that much harder…I'm that much better at what I do. There is a certain amount of pride that anyone should take when they complete a task that is assigned to them, that I understand, but friendship and love…they are foreign to me.

Friendship…a bond between two people who find something that they have in common…the chances of me finding someone who shares my interests is very slim and the chances that they would want to befriend me is even lower. It is faked easily enough, for instance, Inuzuka Kiba believes me to be his friend, based solely on the fact that we cut class together a few times. He was bored; I was interested in finding out what normal people do when they aren't learning.

Love…I simply cannot fathom the concept of love. For normal people there must be something comforting about being with someone of the opposite sex…or sometimes even the same sex. I for one don't see what the big deal is. To me, love is an extension of friendship, a subject that I currently have to fake so I can keep my mask up. The old man once told me that while friendship must be grown, like an animal or plants, that love is just an instinctual need to be with someone, to make their wishes reality and to protect them with your own life. I still don't see what's so great about it, but if I 'loved' anyone, it would be the old man.

Want to know something? Even if I knew what love and friendship were, I don't think I would be able to see Hinata as anything other than a classmate. You see, if I felt remorse, it would be for Hinata and her older cousin Neji. My first kill…cost them an uncle and father respectively, something I wouldn't want to take away, despite never having had a true father myself.

I'm broken from my musings when everyone begins to file from the room. I stand too, no need to stay here any longer, the new weight of a Konoha head band is comforting on my head, but my mind is far from at ease. Even though the old man has specifically told me that this doesn't break any of his rules, I still feel dirty as I keep Mizuki in the corner of my vision as I leave the room. He has been spying for a traitor and although the Hokage won't tell me who, I can tell that this is a personal matter. Why else would he allow me to take care of a simple spy when he assuredly has information that could be useful to us? Never the less, I have specific instructions from him tonight…and failure just isn't an option.

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

I wait until Mizuki leaves the academy building that evening. He is the last to leave, thinking he has nothing to fear. The old man says that he is going to try and steal an important scroll this evening, and if he says it will happen, than who am I to question that? Mizuki is already a traitor to Konoha, so he has lost all rights to citizenship and thus, any protection he had from me.

He's walking towards the Hokage tower, more specifically the old man's office, but it'll take him another fifteen minutes at this rate. I am content to follow him at a distance, knowing that I can close the current gap between us in a matter of seconds. This, I think, is what sets me apart from the others who enjoy my craft. I've studied enough profiles of others like me, some I've already gone after, some I've left for later on, but they all have a fatal flaw that I do not have; a ritual. You know; a series of habitual actions that they go through before leaving on the hunt. That's where they are weakest, their habits, the patterns they have or leave behind. All it takes is one tiny interruption to that ritual, and they can't handle it and make a mistake. It's the same no matter how short or long the ritual is. That's what makes me better than all the rest. My ritual comes during the best part.

I pick up my pace as Mizuki nears the position I need him in. Even if I miss this initial opportunity, he'll have to pass back here, and I'll get him then, he's as good as dead, he just doesn't know it yet. I've hidden my bright blond hair underneath a black handkerchief, so as not to get gore in it later and my blue eyes have no emotion in them as I draw even with the traitor. In one split second I take my chance and bodily tackle him through the slightly ajar door that lead into one of the sound proof interrogation rooms. They are self contained and I quickly put a kunai to the traitor's throat. He stiffens; obviously he's never felt this helpless before.

"Shut the door!" I hiss at the shocked chuunin, who blindly obeys, hoping to prevent his immanent fate, only to seal it himself. Despite having both my hands occupied, I create six shadow clones and switch places with one of them, so that I can participate in my own party. I don't say anything, the clones know what I'm thinking and they begin their own tasks without saying a thing, with practiced ease two begin to slice at the tendons in Mizuki's legs and then his arms. With my target immobilized, my clone drops the spineless jellyfish to the floor as he screams in pain. It's an annoying sound, and I decide that all things considered, I might have to settle for a very fast kill. The clones set about, spreading his arms and legs out, exposing his arteries for my knife to slice through. A clone moves towards his femoral artery on his left leg and stabs in the general area, through clothing and flesh, until the vital blood way is punctured and blood begins to seep from the wound.

I withdraw a pocket watch along with _the_ knife and look at the face of the clock. It's only been ten seconds since he started bleeding; only another five minutes and I'll break my old record. Another stab, this time to the right leg, it's a shame that I don't have the luxury of time tonight. The old man has given me some specific directions that I have to finish tonight. To any other person in my field, that would be unacceptable, but I have but one post high ritual. It's so minimalist in it's approach that many of the people I hunt would laugh at me if they knew, but if you remove just one finger on each hand, the amount of knowledge that even a trained Hunter can decipher from a body is cut by more than sixty percent. To save time, my clones cut his carotid artery and I can see him try and mouth the word "Demon", but I pay the dead no heed. The first half of my ritual ends when I deliver the coup de grace by stabbing straight through his heart and I watch as his eyes cloud over and roll back into his skull.

As per my instructions, I quickly sever his head and take my trophies, his index fingers and begin to skin them to the bones. These are all I need, all I take from my victims, and the only thing that I would normally do to their body once they were dead, leaving the body to be found in a pool of it's own blood, but tonight, I have to act the part of an actual Hunter, and so Mizuki's severed head is sealed into a scroll and I burn his body as I have been instructed to do. I don't need to clean up the blood, as Ibiki was a little too overzealous the last time he was in this room and no one will notice the addition of another few smears amongst dozens. As his body burns, I remove my blood soaked clothing and wipe the excess blood from my face and hands before throwing the ruined garments on to the flames. When the fire has died down, nothing is left, not even bone and I am left to report back to the old man.

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

He's waiting for me when I knock on his office door, even at this hour of night and quietly ushers me inside and locks his office. I pull out the scroll with the head sealed inside and hand it to him. Unlike most hunts, there isn't a bounty on Mizuki's head, no, this time; the head is to be sent as a message to his master. Sarutobi is through playing games and he thinks it's time that his former student knew that.

"Send as many lackeys as you like." It will say. "They will all be returned in a similar state." No quarter, no surrender. Not now, not to Sarutobi and by proxy, not to me.

"Naruto, I'm proud of you. You've taken my words and my rules to heart and have turned into a fine ninja." The praise is welcomed, but I feel no warmth or joy from it. I can't feel anything.

"He thought I was the demon. I think that's probably why he was so susceptible to turning against us." I gave up the only interesting bit of information that I had gleamed in my workings. Yes, I know about the Kyuubi, I have known since that first time I went outside the village to slack my thirst, my target had been a lush and didn't stop calling me 'Kyuubi until I removed his tongue from his mouth. When I returned from that trip, I asked Sarutobi about it.

"Am I the Kyuubi?" I asked, the curiosity getting the better of me. He shook his head, not replying with words, but his eyes remained on me, waiting for the inevitable follow up questions to come. "Is that the voice I hear in my head? Is that the reason that I'm not like the other kids?" This was the crux of my questioning. If he answered yes, then there was a chance that one day I might be able to fit in with the others, naturally, no masks, no faking needed.

The old man paused, looking straight into my dead blue eyes, starring right into my black soul.

"At first, I thought maybe it was, but after that first night…I'm afraid that what sets you apart from the others; isn't simply the demon that the Yondaime sealed inside you. Do you remember what you said that night? That it was taking too long? That was the exact same answer that your father gave me when he began to show the same signs as you. No Naruto, I'm afraid that your gift has been passed down from your father."

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

**(A/N: Hah! Bet you didn't see that one coming! You were all betting on the Kyuubi, weren't you?! For now, this will remain as a one shot, as the idea sounded so good in my head, yet as I wrote it down, I find myself less and less enthused with it. Perhaps one day I will continue it, or add to it. Heck, if any of you want to continue it, PM me, let me know some how, and I'll take a look at it. **

**Anyway, please read and review. (Hopefully, if you're reading this, you've already read the story, so it's just that review part that is eluding you.)**


	2. Chapter 2

**(I don't own Naruto or Dexter…I mean, I do own Dexter season 1 on DVD, but that's not quite the same thing)**

The day following my ritual is always so …slow. Exactly why, I can't say, could be that I've used so much adrenaline last night, or it could just be that the voice has been sated for now. I don't worry, it'll come back soon enough; I'm never alone for long. Today I'm supposed to be getting my team assignments and for once I'm almost…anxious? Teamwork is something that I understand, quite well in fact. If the Hokage hadn't been helping me for so long, I might not get it, but working together, the pack mentality if you will, is something that has been drilled into me from a young age.

I've just been lying in bed for the past half an hour or so, doing nothing in particular. Just watching the sun creep across the ceiling; telling me that it's time to start my day.

My mornings are as normal as anyone else's. Shower, eat…maybe do some stretches, nothing that you haven't seen before…I water my plants every day. Is that odd? I find it quite ironic that I have such a green thumb, don't you? Maybe it's because I take lives that I have such a gift of cultivating it. This morning I appear to be working on my newest project, I bought it the other day at the Yamanaka flower shop, a pretty large flower pot, probably three or four gallons large. I plan on growing a nice fern, something big and leafy. As I dig out a shallow area for my young fern, I slip a little something extra in with it…last night's trophy…or trophies if you're going to be technical about it, three bones in every index finger, two per body. These six will sit right underneath my newest decoration and never see the light of day again.

That's another area where I differ from my peers. Often, there is a need to hold or see the trophies of our work afterwards…sometimes weeks, months…sometimes years later, but not for me. By using them as fertilizer, not only can I keep them around, but I can view them whenever I want, and no one will ever know about it. Every plant in my apartment has a story behind it…and underneath it. Mizuki was number eight in my collection. Numbers two through seven are under various other flowers, mostly perennials so that I don't have to replant every year. Number one…well, he's in a very special place, at least to me.

I notice that I have to be at the Academy in twenty minutes for my team assignments and I quickly grab my jacket and leave, taking one last look at my newest addition. He'll fit in well with the others I think.

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

We're waiting, my team and I that is…it's boring. I'm not entirely sure what to think about them, as ninja that is. Uchiha Sasuke is the rookie of the year, but frankly he's physically weaker than me and his only advantage is his ninjutsu, which I don't care a whole lot about. Then there's Haruno Sakura, my 'crush'. It's such an ugly word, why do people use it to denounce love? Is love like being crushed underneath a boulder? If so, maybe its better I don't know what it is…it sounds painful. They both think that the teams were put together because of our grades…that they are the two strongest and I'm the weakest, the dead last of our year. I don't see how that's possible, since our grades are public record and I was clearly in the lower quartile, but not near the bottom.

No, grades had bupkis to do with our team assignments…heh…funny word, bupkis…every time I hear it used, I think about squash…I wonder why? Anyway, back to the team…Sasuke is on the team because the old man sees what I see in him…a slightly less messed up me. When his clan was massacred he changed…from what I'm told, for the worse, though frankly, I thought he was kinda self-centered before too. He's damaged, like me, but not empty…not like I am. He makes himself this way, trying to erase his emotions, be the perfect shinobi…for rookie of the year; he's not doing so well. I've seen the tears in his eyes when ever he thinks too long.

Sakura is on the team, solely for my benefit. She's more or less worthless as a kunoichi as she is now, but that's not to say there isn't potential and talent. However, first academically and last athletically make you only a mediocre ninja, so how come Iruka told her she was top of the class? It was the Hokage's idea, you see, there is one thing that makes Sakura perfect as my love interest…she more stubborn than any other person in Konoha. She will _never __**ever**_ stop fawning over Sasuke which is good for me, because if she ever decided to take me up on one of my now infamous date offers, I'd be clueless as how to proceed, and that's not good for me or my mask. It's perfect, don't you see, she'll continue to reject me until the end of time and I can appear to be a normal teenager who is foolishly holding out for the girl of his dreams.

It's been nearly an hour and our instructor still hasn't shown up and outside, I'm seething at the outrage…of course, that what they'll see, they don't know how calm and at ease I am right now…I'm back with my plants and neither of my teammates know it.

Fifteen minutes later he enters. Our sensei has as much grey hair as the old man and wears a mask over his mouth like he's a doctor about to go into surgery. His left eye is covered with his protector, and his left is an uninteresting shade of black that is very boring…just like his attitude. In his hand is an orange bound book, roughly the same hue as the jacket and pants I'm wearing. Icha Icha Paradise…so he reads those does he? I wonder if he'll see it then? How all of my mannerisms and emotions are taken directly from that book? We even have the same wardrobe. It's true, that book has taught me almost as much about emotion as the Hokage has taught me, and it had the added bonus of saving the old man from giving me 'The talk'. Since I don't get sex, at least why people would want to have sex, and it does have the most accurate depiction of human emotion, at least according to Sarutobi, he allowed me to read it. I just skipped over the boring parts (boring to me, not to sensei apparently) and viola! Instant emotional tutor!

"Well, my first impression of you guys…" He speaks! "…I don't like you." He seems to smile with his eyes, just another thing that puzzles me, both what is there to smile about, and how you can do it with your eyes, when he tells us to meet on the roof in five minutes. Interesting choice of meeting place, outside, easy escape…too exposed. My mind slips into analyzing what could be going on in that salt and pepper head of our instructor, only to give up in boredom.

We all get to the roof to find our sensei sitting on the railing, book in hand. For a minute we sit there, waiting for the other party to make the first move.

"What are we doing here, sensei?" Sakura asked…and people say my mask has no patience.

"Well, it's a nice day out, so I figured we could all do with some fresh air while we introduced ourselves, you know, team stuff."

That's just it, I don't know 'team stuff', that's why I'm here, that's what you have to teach me.

"What do you mean, maybe you should introduce yourself first, sensei, you can show us how it's done." She pressed on.

"Well, my name is Hatake Kakashi…I have certain things that I like and dislike…as for hobbies…I think I've got a few of those…I have a dream for the future as well…or was that just a dream I had last night? Can't remember those things for the life of me." He paused and grabbed his chin in thought. "You're up next, Pinky."

Sakura bristled at her nickname, but pushed it aside and began her own less than helpful introduction. "Well, my name is Haruno Sakura, I like… (She looked over at Sasuke) My hobbies include… (Again…Sasuke) My dreams for the future… (Now, here she got a glassy look in her eye and I could have sworn I saw her body convulse)…and I dislike Ino-pig and Naruto!" She finished adamantly.

"Aww, Sakura-chan, you don't mean that!" I insist…even if it's just for posterity.

"You in the blue, you're next." Kakashi instructs without lifting his gaze from his book.

"Hmph, my name is Uchiha Sasuke, I don't have anything I like or dislike. My only hobby is training, and my dream for the future…my ambition is to revive my clan and kill a certain man." Sakura squeals something about how cool he is and not for the first time I wonder if she's playing with a full deck of cards…I know what he means by 'reviving his clan' and it sound rather unappealing to me, I mean, if falling in love is getting crushed, than what's having sex like? Ripping an arm off?

"Okay, you, the one dressed like my book." So he did notice it…leave it to a man with a mask on to see through mine…maybe not completely, but at least through the first layer.

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto!" I beam. "I like ramen, (which is true, you try finding a food that gives you near a full day's serving of protein, vegetables and carbohydrates in one go) training and people who keep their promises. I dislike those who think they are above others and those who would harm this village. My hobbies are gardening and tasting every kind of ramen I can find…My dream for the future…to be Hokage of course...and then Sakura-chan will fall in love with me!"

"NOT IN YOUR DREAMS, NARUTO!" She screams at me, I think it might have ruptured my ear drum…

"All right, well I think that's enough for today, tomorrow we'll meet at seven o'clock for our first mission." Kakashi actually put his book away when he spoke up.

"What kind of mission sensei?" Sakura asked and even Sasuke seemed interested.

"Survival training." Is his reply and I already know where this is heading. The bell test…shit. I don't know if we can work together and overcome the fact that Sasuke won't accept help, Sakura can't help herself, and I have no way of helping either of them realize that they need to help each other…without paying attention, I accept the proffered information that Kakashi has handed out and stop strategizing until I feel him leave and my teammates stand up to go their separate (yeah right, not if Sakura had anything to say about it) ways. I remain sitting until the heat becomes even more intense and the atmosphere too oppressive to my mind. I can't think like this…can't think here. I decide to head home and see if I can't find some solace in my plants.

Thirty minutes later, no luck…twenty minutes to walk back and another five before the air feels too heavy to even breathe anymore…in times like this, there's only one place that I can go and even hope to get some peace…

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

It's the last place in Konoha that you'd expect to find any kind of flora, but the head of the Yondaime is surprisingly green with moss and there's even a thin layer of grass on the wooden beams of the emergency shelter built a little higher up on the monument. That's not why I'm here though, but it is a clue. It is up here that I've hidden my number one…that first trophy. There's a small space I cut into one of those support beams as soon as I could reach them on my own, just a tiny thing, but large enough to hide my secret and allow me to get to them should I ever need or want to. I know that I said that I didn't do that kind of thing, but the first kill…it's just so special, that to bury it away underneath some plant…it's demeaning to the memory of that first, perfect moment.

It's too light out, so I dare not retrieve what is mine, but being in such close proximity is enough for now, I can feel a kind of calm inside my head, much less oppressive than at the academy or even in my apartment. I close my eyes and sit down atop the head of the youngest Hokage in our history…the man who sealed the Kyuubi inside of me…the man who gave me my gift…my father. You'd think that I might hate him, for the Kyuubi, or for making me the way I am…but then again, I can't even bring myself to think of him as my father…The Sandaime is my father, he's the one who has taught me the way of the ninja, taught me about the will of fire, taught me how to channel myself, to become what I am.

I lay on my back and watch the clouds move in the sky. Shikamaru is always saying that it's relaxing…it's slow. I hate slow, now watching blood squirt out from a severed artery, that's both fast, and relaxing. Now, I seriously doubt that Shikamaru would find release in my type of fun, and I know that everyone has their own tastes, but cloud watching? Really? I've watched some kids play this game…where they watch the clouds and try and say what they look like. To me they all look like clouds. White, boring, slow…fucking clouds! I can't take it anymore, so I close my eyes and just listen to the noise rise over the afternoon village. Feel the wind coming in from my right side and swirling against the other heads that line the cliff to my left. The stone below me is nice and warm after being heated by the sun all day and for the first time since Kakashi announced our task tomorrow, I feel myself return to normal…to nothing.

I understand the symbolism in my choice of locale. I am trying to get inside his head, to figure him out. From what the old man tells me, he's just like me after all. The Hokage told me all about him, how he created the Hiraishin to indulge in his addiction to speed. What a glorious technique that must have been! I've often though about what it would be like; to know the secrets to the Flying Thunder God, but…I almost prefer to keep that a fantasy…almost. The Hokage told me everything about my family, my father in explicit detail, about his childhood, his time in the academy and then about the war. He told me about why Iwagakure hated him, why they would undoubtedly transfer that to me if they knew who I was. I think it's the first time that I've felt human. They would be afraid of me because of _who_ I was, not _what_ I was. They fear that I have inherited not only my father's genius, but his love of speed and death.

They'd be correct.

You see, the Hokage explained that the reason they hated my father, wasn't because he killed so many of their ninja, but because of _how_ he dispatched of them. See, under normal circumstances, in war a ninja will kill more than once. The most notorious will obviously do it way more than that, but they are the only ones who know it, there is no clue as to who murdered who on a battle field.

Except for my father. He had a truly distinct way of dealing death that was easily recognized. One cut, across the neck. Just one, but with that tri bladed kunai of his, one cut got him through the carotid artery, the jugular, the windpipe and even the spine. The body would be found with the head connected to the body only by the barest flap of skin at the back of the neck. It was fast, almost too fast for my tastes, but at the same time it was beautiful. No one survives decapitation, not ever.

The sun has sunk below the horizon by the time I am fully at ease with the day's events. Everything is…normal. Normally empty.

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

The next morning, the day of our test is just like yesterday and will probably be the same as tomorrow. I know that Kakashi won't be on time, but I have appearances to keep up, so I can only afford to show up a little late. Both my teammates are already there, Sakura got here first no doubt. Now there is nothing to do but play the waiting game…I'm already loosing.

He doesn't show up for another two hours. Not until nine and even though I know that it's part of the test, I can't help but feel a little anger in his tardiness. Sakura yells something about how he should respect our time and show up when he says he will, but we all ignore her, even Sasuke.

"But Sakura," He says in an admonishing tone of voice. "I was here a while ago, you just didn't notice me. You were talking at Sasuke and blushing too much to notice me." It's true, he did arrive at around eight thirty actually; he just stayed hidden and watched us. I notice that Sakura's face flush in embarrassment…isn't that redundant? She was blushing about blushing? I shake my head free from that strange thought in time to hear Kakashi claim that to get a bell from him we'll need to come at him with the "intent to kill."

I doubt he talked with the Hokage; otherwise he might have worded that little differently. By the time he actually says 'GO', I've already slipped into my routine usually reserved for the underbelly of our world. All three of us hide in the surrounding woods with varying degrees of success. I can see Sakura all the way at the far end of the woods; her red dress and pink hair stick out from the green and brown foliage like a welcome mat. Sasuke is in the tree almost directly above her. He's hidden better, but he's got a long way to go if he wants to come close to my level, even with the orange. I watch Kakashi just stand in the same spot we left him, his book still in his hands, eyes swinging from side to side as he reads. At least, that what he wants us to think. He's already spotted the other two, probably before he finished the first line of whatever page he's on, so why is he still fake reading, why is he still looking?

Shit. It's me, I've hidden myself too well, he can't find me, and it's frightened him. Or at least cause for him to take a closer look, something I should have avoided at all possible. I'm supposed to be terrible at this, what with my loud voice and nature, not to mention that I'm dressed about as stealthily as an Akimichi at a dieter's convention. Yet I've managed to drop off his radar completely. He'll find me eventually, I'm not that good, not yet, but still, he'll be suspicious and I can't have that.

I decide to 'ambush' him, knowing full well that it won't work, but it will make my frontal attack much easier to believe later on. My first pair of shuriken fly at his head and as expected he simply ducks them, which is why my second pair are aimed at where his head will be, except these are connected by a good length of ninja wire and are meant to act more as bolas than shuriken. Normally he would have tried to just back up or stand up, but I've buried another throwing star right behind his feet in the ground, and if he takes that step he'll impale his own foot. Not surprisingly, he uses a replacement at the last minute which gives me about five seconds to get into the clearing and give away my position.

Now I'm the one out in the open and waiting for an attack, thankfully Kakashi has decided not to make me wait now that I'm not posing an interesting challenge for him. He's charging me from the front, arm cocked back for a punch, telegraphing his every move to me…shouldn't I be the one doing that? He must be trying to test my taijutsu, at least I hope that's what I hope he's doing, because if it's not, than I seriously might question his abilities. I don't have a taijutsu style per say, you don't need one when all you have to do is stun your opponent long enough to cut some tendons before spilling their blood everywhere, which is what makes tackling and grappling moves perfect. Mine are moves that make your opponent think 'what the hell?' in the middle of a battle, which means that they aren't concentrating on me.

I use my coiled legs to launch myself at Kakashi's midsection and tackle him to the ground, only to tackle a shadow clone that disappears upon being hit. I decide to show off a little and make a score of shadow clones as well, to make a tiny perimeter around myself and wait for Kakashi's next move. It isn't what I expect. Apparently he's gotten everything he wants from me, at least for now, because I can feel him over by Sakura and Sasuke, he's already taken care of Sakura and is waiting for Sasuke to realize what has happened. I am barely able to see him in the shadows of the trees. He's standing right next to where Sakura was, I can only assume she's on the ground, hidden beneath the lower layer of bush that I can't penetrate with my gaze. Sasuke is in the tree directly above him, oblivious to the goings on right underneath him, and I loose almost all hope that we'll pass this test. While my remaining teammate and damaged brother are ignorant of our teacher, I am not, and I notice as he looks at me from his position and give me that eye smile of his.

This isn't a team test anymore…it's my test. That masked son of a bitch is testing me. Hm…maybe he talked with the old man after all. He knows what I knew and what the Hokage knew long ago…Uchiha Sasuke is an ok ninja, but he is too damaged to be great. Too damaged to even understand the big picture…too damaged to be useful to the village. Unless I can reach him…unless I can somehow turn back the clock on his life, stop him from torturing himself into what I was born. I hear Sasuke's limp body fall from the tree, he too is unconscious, probably for some time. It's just him and me now, no one to make me hold back, no one who can gleam any insight into my life except the one person who needs to know. This team is as much mine to teach as it is his, if I'm reading the hidden message that the old man is leaving me and if I'm right about this test, than I, and by proxy they, have an excellent chance of passing this test. It's all on me right now and the single kunai that has buried itself next to my feet is the sign I've been waiting for. Kakashi is calling me to action, to let loose all my inhibitions, to be what I am, not what I am forced to pretend to be. He's asking me to play, and of course I accept.

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

Three hours later and my teammates awaken, sore, disoriented and tied to stumps at the end of the training field. After figuring out that they had failed their faces fell, which my mask interpreted as the cue to brighten their day.

"Hey guys!" I yell. "You're up!"

"Naruto!" Sakura yelled, shocked that she was tied up and I was free and only slightly dirty. "How come you aren't tied up? No way you're better than Sasuke-kun!" She badgered…god I love how stubborn she can be, it fits my needs so well.

"Naruto isn't tied up because he actually tried to attack me." Kakashi decided to come over from the fallen hero's monument he had been absorbed with for the past half an hour. I don't know how to feel about him right now, he wasn't as observant as I had been told. Before our little scrimmage I had thought that he might have gleamed inside me, into what I was. In reality, my mask is too good. He was able to see through the first flimsy layer. He saw that my emotions were manufactured; he knows that I fake my interest in Sakura and that I am not the easily excitable blond I have made myself out to be. He knew that I was holding back beforehand, I guess I did do too good a job at hiding my presence.

What he doesn't know and didn't figure out, is that I fake a lot more than just my interest in my female teammate. He didn't even begin to glimpse the emptiness inside me, and he certainly has no clue that I have a tendency to murder bad people and amputate their index fingers.

"I'm disappointed in you three, but the two of you especially." I hear Kakashi-sensei begin the rehearsed speech we had gone over for this. He's told me that my performance has assured our passage on this test, but we have to trick Sasuke and Sakura into thinking that they have actually accomplished something other than being caught flat footed. I tune out his condescending speech for now, I'm going through the motions of the shocked teammate and I'm not even consciously trying…maybe my mask is too good.

"I'll give you guy's one last chance after lunch, but Naruto is going to be in charge of deciding who gets to eat anything." I must have zoned out a bit, because I missed his little overly dramatic explanation about teamwork and its importance to our test. I look over at my teammates…I see a bit of regret in Sakura's eyes, now that I hold her lunch hostage she is regretting ever saying whatever mean things she's said about me recently…like I care, mean words can't affect those with no feelings to hurt.

Because it's expected of me, I release her from her bonds and offer a portion of the food I've been granted to Sakura without even pausing, not enough for her to give it to Sasuke, that would be too easy, but enough for her to continue to buy the lie that she means something to me. Sasuke I act as if the thought of helping him disgusts me, I must be doing an alright job, because I see a bit of worry creep into Sakura's eyes. Sasuke of course betrays no emotion, or tries not to; I can just read the barest hint of uncertainty that begins to gnaw at the front of his thoughts. I know I'm supposed to act like I'm seriously considering not feeding him, but just for a moment I consider withholding his portion until he swears upon his parents graves that he'll help us, but I know we'd be here until we're old and gray if I do. So I walk over and get in his face.

"Sasuke, I don't know what the hell has crawled into your pants and died, but if you don't help Sakura-chan and I, than not only won't I give you any food, but we'll get those bells without your help, and then you'll be the one going back to the academy." It's exactly the thing that my mask would say, despite that it's almost exactly the thing I would actually do if I could. Of course it's a pass or fail situation, no way that only two of us pass, but if he doesn't believe it, he'll never agree to my offer.

He doesn't actually say it, but his eyes give it away if his slumped body didn't. He's in, maybe just for now, and definitely only to save his own hide, but he's in. I cut him loose and while he's rubbing circulation back into his wrists I feel Kakashi appear behind me, bearing good news.

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

In a dungy underground bunker in Rice country, a red headed scientist was investigating a scroll that had shown up just a little while ago. It came from Konoha which wouldn't raise any red flags normally, but this one contained the personal seal of the Sandaime Hokage, so Karin had every right to be interested. As expected, when the seal was broken a puff of smoke appeared, designating that this was a storage scroll, and it wasn't until the smoke cleared that she got a look at what had been sent by her master's former teacher.

Mizuki's severed head wasn't an unexpected surprise, he was a poor spy and an even worse ninja…heck, he wasn't even the only spy in Konoha, so it's not like he would be missed, but something caught the fledgling scientist/medic's eye. First off was the cut. Technically it was cuts, since it had taken who ever had done this three strokes of whatever blade, probably a kunai, to behead the spy, yet there were no signs of hesitation, which meant that the multiple cuts were due to necessity, not nerves. The second was the amount of blood that accompanied the head. There wasn't enough. She began to smile at the thought. Whoever had killed this useless pawn had bled quite a bit of blood from his body. In her seventeen years of life, never had she seen Konoha ANBU drain the blood from an interrogation victim. The smile continued to spread across her lips until it seemed to reach from ear to ear. This person had a fascination with blood eh? There were only two possible explanations as to why a body is returned with such a noticeable lack of blood. Either the killer liked the stuff, or they knew that Karin did, and they were taunting her. Since she was a well guarded secret, even to other ninja in Otogakure, it had to be the former. Her smile was permanent now. Somewhere out there, probably tucked within the walls of Konoha, there was someone else like her out there, someone who enjoyed the finer things in life. Like seeing your victim squirm and writhe against their bonds as a kunai relieved them of their precious liquids…

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

**(A/N: Well, considering that every single review I received for the first chapter called for more, I decided to acquiesce to your request and indulge myself a little bit. This is a bit longer than chapter 1, so I hope you like it just as much, I don't normally like writing in first person…but come on! It's just so much cooler this way! **

**As always, please read, review, and hopefully in doing that you'll stroke my ego enough to make me rush some new stuff out sooner rather than later.)**


	3. Chapter 3

It's been about a month since I've become a genin

It's been about a month since I've become a genin. My team and I have been doing pointless and boring D-rank missions, most of which are chores for people who have disposable income and are too lazy to weed their own garden or to clean their own gutters. I know that my teammates despise these missions with all the hatred that they can muster, and I agree that they are worthless when it comes to training a ninja, but I take the time to do them anyway. For one, the more time I spend with Sasuke and Sakura, the more they can become accustomed to me…the more they think I am normal.

Thankfully tonight I don't have to worry about gutters, weeds or cats that have run away from their smothering owners. No, tonight I've got my own mission. Normally I can last a lot longer than a month between outings, but the voice is a bit incessant tonight, and I am not one to argue with it.

She's not much to look at, my next playmate that is, average height, average weight, brown hair and eyes. All the better to blend into the crowd, something I can defiantly understand. She has this nasty little habit of abducting young girls and then selling them to wealthy out of towners who are in need of servants…or worse. She's stopped at a store and I know that now's my chance to get to her rather upscale house, it's only a block and a half away, and wait. It doesn't take me long to find the building, far too extravagant for a supposed nanny. She obviously isn't worried that someone might come after her, if the opened windows and unlocked rear door are any indication, and within seconds I'm inside and waiting for the guest of honor to arrive.

I don't have to wait for long before I hear the sound of a key in the dead bolt of the front door. As soon as she's inside her abode and steps out from the foyer I'm behind her and holding a knife to her spine while my left hand is clasped tightly over her mouth. I feel her stiffen in shock and her eyes go wide as she feels the sharp steel in my hand puncture her back and lodge itself between her vertebrae, paralyzing her from the waist down. As her legs collapse out from under her I lower her to her tiled floor and lock eyes with her. She has no emotions besides fear and that is exactly what I want.

"Did you really think that you could sell human lives to the highest bidder and not suffer some retribution for it?" I whisper threateningly.

Instead of intensifying her fear, I notice that she actually becomes a bit more relaxed. I'm not the most terrifying thing to her right now?

"You were expecting someone else I see." I let up the pressure on her spine, leaving her a limp pile on the floor. "Tell me." I say as I step around her so that I can point my knife where I want it, where she knows that there is no way out of this, right at her throat.

"Tell me, what scares you enough that you would welcome your own end?"

She smiles at me…actually smiles! Her spine has been severed and she knows she's gonna die, yet she's smiling at me!

"Could' a been a lot worse." She gasps out, grasping at her back, trying to slow the spread of her own blood. "If I failed him, he'd do to me what those stuck up princesses-" I cut her off…well, at least her ear off. I don't care about her human cargo, there is nothing I can or would do about it anyway. "As much as I'm sickened by what you did to those kids, I'm a bit more interested in this 'he' you mentioned." The malice and intent in my voice is unmistakable and a bit more fear floods into her brown eyes.

"He came up to me and offered me money! More money than I'd ever imagined!" I cut her off with a quick slice to her cheek, just underneath her left eye.

"A name please, I don't like it when people carry on." The pain of that little cut seems to have startled her back into a straight train of thought.

"Gato! His name is Gato!"

"That's all I need." I smile as I begin my work, cutting through the veins in her wrist and watching as the blood flows, the pocket watch comforts me with its ticking as I take it out and begin my countdown.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I get in later than I would have liked that night, it was our day off tomorrow, so it wasn't like I would have to meet my teammates or anything like that, but I do enjoy my days off and wasting an hour of one is something I don't like to do.

On the bright side, my little excursion did garner me a new trophy as well as a new target to consider. I've heard of Gato, probably the richest person in the world right now and he has a reputation for using less than legal practices to get what he wants. I've just satisfied my craving and already the prospect of a new plant in my apartment is starting to stir up some dangerous feelings for me. I know I should be sated…be happy, but as usual I just feel empty. Well, happy isn't the best word, but normally after I do my deed I at least feel less empty. It's kind of an inside joke to me. 'On a scale from 1 to 10, how empty am I today?' I should be well into the two or three range, but instead I feel like I'm back at five. I wonder if this is how Sasuke feels after he spends hours and hours practicing and training, trying to surpass his brother, but deep inside knowing that it isn't helping.

I'll have to wait a while before I can go out and buy a new plant to bury my new trophy, but I don't mind, really, I like just sitting in my tiny living room and letting my thoughts drift away…

The knocking at my door breaks what little tranquility I've managed to find and replaces my previous thoughts of my next outing with thoughts of who the hell interrupted my day off?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Standing in the Hokage's office isn't where I want to be right now. I'd much rather be back home doing nothing, but you can't just blow off a summons from the old man. Well, one would make the argument that Kakashi does that daily, but he shows up eventually, so it's something you just have to live with.

Anyway, the rest of my team is here, save for Sensei, but then again, no one was expecting him, so why wait? Team ten is also here, not sure why, but it's a Sunday, I shouldn't be having to think on my day off!

"I've received a pair of urgent mission requests that have to be filled today, so I'd like to apologize to both teams for dragging you in here." The Hokage is trying to calm us down before Sakura has an aneurism or Ino snaps and bites the head (literally) off Shikamaru.

"One is a C rank escort mission to Wave country, a bridge builder has been having some trouble with 'bandits' lately and has asked for our help." We can all feel the sarcasm roll of his tongue at the mentions of bandits and Wave country. Anyone with a brain and access to a newspaper knows that Gato has been putting a choke hold on the tiny island nation and where the rich are concerned, only ninja will do as body guards.

I'm already liking the sound of this mission, one it's a C rank, which means absolutely no cat chasing, garden weeding or fence painting, and second of all, it puts me close to Gato…and I've heard such lovely things about him too.

"The other one is an investigation and if necessary extermination mission, but it's a bit…strange." Now this in new. A mission that the old man considers odd? As far as I knew, he didn't think any thing was 'strange' after he took me in when I was three.

"It comes all the way from a small village on the boarder of the land of water and the land of lightning it's mostly a vacation spot for merchants and their families and there have been a number of incidents as of late that they want taken care of as discretely as possible, less the town loose its main source of income."

"Is it a really difficult mission?" Sakura asked, a bit worried that maybe we were being asked to go on a B rank mission or something.

"No Sakura," The old man chuckled. "It's not difficult; it's just been labeled as an F rank mission."

Ok, forget Wave, this mission is mine…or ours…but I/we have to have it! The F rank mission is an anomaly that occurs when there is severe doubt as to the parameters given by the filing party, but not enough reason to turn the mission down.

Anyway, the reason they're called F rank missions, regardless of the actual rank, is a bit of a joke. Some people say the F stands for 'phantasmal' as in ghosts, and just about half of the F rank missions turn out to be just that, ghost stories that spook a village into paying us absurd amounts of money to go pull a sheet off of a teenager.

The other accepted explanation is that it stands for 'Fucked up' which is also appropriate. Of the remaining fifty percent of F rank missions, those that are accepted usually revolve around particularly gruesome or violent murders committed by civilians on other civilians. In other words, if the Hokage hadn't taken me in, I was an F rank mission waiting to happen.

Of course, to me the F stands for fingers, because that's exactly what I'm hoping to get out of this and the Hokage knows it.

"Since Kakashi isn't here, team Ten will get to choose." Of course they'd get to go first; their teacher is the Old man's son!

"We'll take the C rank mission." Sarutobi Asuma assured his father. "I think Ino would go ballistic if we didn't take it."

My fellow blonde just nodded her head and gave a snort saying 'damn right I'd kill you for making me do a mission that's below a D!'

The old man called for their client to come in and meet the team, The 'Master bridge builder' as he introduced himself was obviously drunk and probably had been when he requested the mission, but Team ten was now stuck with him and quickly left him to gather their things for the mission, just as Kakashi-sensei walked in, face buried in his smut, and calmly asked what was going on. Before the Hokage, Sasuke or I could try and explain, Sakura caught his attention.

"Sensei, what's an F rank mission?"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

We were told to go pack for approximately a week's worth of travel, though it might be less, and meet up in about two hours, that would give us time to eat lunch before we left, meaning we wouldn't have to take as much food with us. Kakashi-sensei would brief us on the specifics of our mission as we traveled.

Well, it's been two hours, we've all eaten and packed and of course, Kakashi isn't here yet. No one is surprised by that, and we had just sat down in preparation for a two hour wait, when got a surprise.

"You brats Team Seven?" A hard feminine voice queried.

Mitarashi Anko stood before us, her purplish hair swaying gently in the afternoon breeze in her usual garments of a micro-mini skirt and a tan trench coat.

"We are, but who are you?" Sakura asked seeing as Sasuke never speaks unless it's something that can't be communicated via grunting and hand signals, and I was a bit more preoccupied with the fingers I still hadn't had time to stow away.

"Kakashi got called in on an emergency A rank mission, so I'm going to be your temporary Sensei for this little excursion into the deep dark underbelly of our world." All of this was delivered quite deadpan and with a smirk on her face, "My name is Mitarashi Anko, but if you brats call me Anko-sensei you won't like the consequences, we clear?" To emphasize her threat our temp unleashed a small dose of killer intent, enough to make the other two not question her words at all, but I knew better.

You see, in some ways, Anko is as damaged as I am; she's just dealt with it differently. After her Jounin sensei gave her a cursed seal and committed some less than ethical experiments on her, something inside her snapped. According to the Sandaime, before she was abandoned and basically left to rot, she was considered a true prodigy and was on the fast track to become the first female ANBU captain in, what was at the time, the new assassination division, but then Orochimaru happened and since then, she hasn't been able to kill a single person or even an animal. Rumor has it, that she's even become a vegetarian so that she doesn't have the death of her food on her conscience.

Now that's not to say that she wouldn't follow through on her threats, amputations are generally non lethal, so I'm going to watch my behavior anyway.

"We'll do introductions on the way, so don't bother right now, first I've got to brief you small fries on the mission, so let's get going."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

It would take us about four days to reach our destination, and since we would only get in a half day's travel today anyway, we walked at a normal pace in silence until Anko decided it would be a good place to stop for the night.

Apparently it hadn't occurred to Sakura or Sasuke that she hadn't briefed us on the mission yet, despite having had well over seven hours to do so while we were walking. It wasn't until we had our camp set up and a small smokeless fire going that she decided to give us a peak into what were heading into.

"According to whatever idiot filled this request, there's been number of murders recently and the main suspect is a ghost OR a demon OR it's a mixture of the two, but it's so violent and gruesome that they've all but ruled out people as the culprit."

She pulled out the scroll with the mission request on it and handed it to me. Underneath the short explanation of why they were requesting the mission, there were some rather graphic photos of one of the victims of this 'demon'. It made what I do seem like a very humane way to go out. There were over fifty individual stab wounds on the first victim, only three of which were deemed fatal, meaning that they suffered through forty-seven stabs before they MIGHT have died. Then, just so the killer was sure, the through had been slit and the skull crushed. To top that off, large sections of skin had been removed, so that just a thin layer was absent, leaving the underlying muscle and organs in perfect condition. I handed the scroll over to Sasuke, who sat to my right, and feigned illness at what I had seen.

Inside, I began to make a list of what I knew from the photo and the request. There were seven confirmed victims right now, three were women and four were men, and it changed, so that every other death was of the opposite sex than the last. He was due to kill a woman next, and it was causing quite the stir amongst the townsfolk. Besides the skin there was nothing else taken from the victims, so there was his trophy (and I'm certain it is a man), now it was just a matter of finding the common thread. These people were between the ages of nineteen and thirty-two, so not much there, there weren't any common hang outs, and as far as the locals knew, the seven people had never met in their lives.

The sound of vomiting breaks me form my listing and I look over to see Sasuke spilling his lunch while Sakura looked worried and quickly hurried over to support the upchucking Uchiha. When his heaving stopped Sakura turned to where the scroll had fallen from Sasuke's grasp and moved to pick it up. I was surprised at the movement, apparently Anko was too, if the look on her face was anything to go by, we both thought that anything that would freak out Sasuke would have Sakura running for the hills. It wasn't until that she moved to dump the scroll in the fire that we both realized that our hope had been misplaced, and had to stop her before she destroyed what little information we had.

Anko grabbed Sakura's shoulder, hard, and stopped her just before she reached the edge of the fire.

"What the hell are you thinking?" She asked harshly. "If you destroy that, we don't get paid for this mission, plus I'll have your ass removed from the ninja ranks!"

My pink haired teammate stopped and tried to stare down a hardened ninja. Comical, but ineffective to say the least.

"If Sasuke-kun can't handle this mission, than what hope do we have?" She argued, still eyeing the fire, trying to gauge the distance.

"Our chances are irrelevant!" Anko firmly yelled. "As ninja, there will be times where you are asked to go on missions that seem to be, or actually are, suicidal, and just because one person can't stomach this mission, doesn't mean we can give it up. Uzumaki over here didn't vomit and he actually looked through the entire thing!"

I gave one of my grins. "Yeah, Sakura-chan, that just means I'm better than Sasuke-teme!"

"Shut up Naruto!" She screamed back at me before she noticed that Sasuke had rejoined us.

"They're right." Was all he said, wiping a bit of crusted barf from the corner of his mouth. "Whoever did that isn't human. There is no way it could be."

For whatever reason, this seemed to calm Sakura down, probably just because Sasuke seemed to be in control of himself again. She actually opened the scroll up and took a glance at the written report before she came to the first picture. As one would expect, the first thing she did was drop the scroll and then turn around and fall to her knees before loosing her lunch.

Neither Anko nor I said anything, and it seemed to me that she was waiting for Sakura to finish heaving what little she had eaten back up. She finally managed to regain a little control over herself and stood back up shakily. Her eyes fell to the scroll on the ground, exactly where it had fallen from her grasp and then quickly snapped back to Anko, pleading for confirmation that this was just a bad dream…that mommy and daddy would wake her up and make it all better.

"I agree with Sasuke-kun, th-that can't be human." She whispered, not trusting herself to say it, probably because somewhere, deep, deep down, she knew she was wrong.

"Hmm…could be, could very well be actually, most murderers don't disfigure their kills as much as this. Now, Uzumaki, care to tell them why it is a human?"

Crap! What is it with Jounin and their uncanny knack for seeing past my mask! Hopefully she hasn't seen too far, or I might just be screwed.

"Um...well, where the skin was removed…it's far too neat and surgical and…well almost caring."

"Not bad kid." Anko praised my analysis.

"So, we're dealing with someone who knows their way around a knife, maybe a cook, maybe a doctor or even a butcher, hell, maybe even a retired ninja. Guesses? Anyone?" Now she's turning this into a game? Or is it a test?

"Surgeon or doctor." Sasuke spoke! Actually spoke!

"Butcher, it's got to be a butcher, it's too brutal to be anything else." Sakura chimed in, actually disagreeing with Sasuke for the first time in recent memory.

"It could be anyone." I spoke up. "Just because this person can use a knife, doesn't mean that their job requires them to use one." If this is a test, I'm going to pass it and if Anko finds out, then she knows better to go squealing it to our teammates.

"Score another one for the boy in orange!" She smiled at me, a glint in her eye. "You keep this up; I might actually not hate you by the end of this mission. What else you got for us?"

She's ignoring Sasuke and Sakura now, probably not good if she hasn't already seen past me, the more she looks, the more she's bound to find.

"Um…well…this is just guess (no it isn't), but well, wouldn't skin decompose pretty quickly? They'd have to hide that smell or else it's in a place where it just blends in naturally." (Hence why I take bone and no skin)

Another Cheshire grin from Anko and suddenly it's off to sleep for the night.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Understandably, Sasuke and Sakura seem weary of me in the morning, but a few 'flubs' and spills on my part reinforce the image of the helpless idiot and they forget that I've just profiled a serial killer in one glance down a sheet of paper.

Of course Anko, being A) not an idiot and B) a jounin, has continued to question me and ask what else I gleamed from my once over of the mission scroll. I tell her most of what I can think off, I'm not going to endanger a member of my team just to MAYBE get a chance at adding trophy number 10 to my collection.

We agree on most points, it's definitely a guy, has exposure to ninja and their tools, that the bodies were dumped at their final, public locations, that the kunai or whatever knife was being used would help us limit our search, but ultimately wouldn't finger a culprit.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

We get to our destination, Kokoro, it's a very nice town, emptier at this time of the year than they would like it to be, I'm sure, but what can they really expect with a homicidal maniac on the loose?

Since our mission is to do this as unobtrusively as possible, we can't just go in asking around. Instead, we'll have to do it the sneaky way. Just outside of the village, Anko had given us places to check out, see if anyone knew anything, or if anyone seemed suspicious. She would be checking out the hospitals, yes hospitals, plural. In a vacation town that can swell in population from about 36,000 to over a million, it was good to have multiple hospitals…and restaurants…and grocery stories. Sasuke was to stake out the grocery stores, and because it would be too dangerous for Sakura to go out alone, she and I would be staking out the restaurants…as a couple.

Of course she had tried to convince our 'captain' (as she now wanted to be called) that Sasuke would make a better date than I, Anko calmly told her to stuff it where the sun doesn't shine and suck it up.

We were having no luck, and we were running out of money, time and stomach space. We tried sushi stalls, ramen carts, full scale seafood places, ramen stalls, vegetarian only restaurants, high class ramen places…and the ramen places weren't even my idea! Not that I complained mind you, but even I have a limit when it comes to ramen.

But through all this walking and eating and talking, we couldn't find anyone who was a retired, exiled, disgraced or washed out ninja.

We were passing by our seventeenth eating establishment when I felt a pair of eyes on us. I moved my hand from within Sakura's clammy grasp and wrapped it around her shoulder, bringer her closer to me, protecting her from view, should someone try and snipe at us. In plain view of so many open air eateries, I should have expected to be watched, but something felt different about this gaze, and the voice in my head, my inner passenger, agreed. Our killer had been watching us, was still watching us actually, if the steady prickling in the back of my mind was any indication, and Sakura or I might have just been made the next target. After all, just because a body hasn't been found yet, doesn't mean someone isn't dead.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The watcher let the young couple go on down the street, noting how natural they seemed to be around each other, as if they had been together nearly all their lives. How it sickened him. That pink haired bitch would make an excellent mark, and the thrill just from the thought of doing them at the same time was just exquisite. Her boyfriend, the blond, was a bit worrisome however. A fine mark he would be, without question, but for someone who had spent as much time watching these puny insects as the watcher did, the boy was a tightly raveled mystery, the joviality and kindness that he exhibited didn't make the watcher stomach twist and knot like normal.

'For some strange reason,' the watcher thought, 'this kid is all right.'

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I felt the eyes leave our backs as we turned towards the hotel we were staying at, free by the way, and they didn't return. When we got to 'our room', Anko and Sasuke were already back, and asked us for our meager findings.

"We couldn't find anything, there's no former ninja of any sort in the town, there are only a handful of people from a ninja village, and they're all old enough to be the Hokage's father!" Sakura complained, rubbing the soles of her feet to relieve some of the sores that develop when you walk around all day eating food and acting like love struck teenagers.

"Uchiha struck out as well." Anko filled us in on their parts for the day. "I didn't get anything out of the hospitals, no admittances for knife wounds around the time of the murders and nobody that was suspicious enough to warrant further looking into. We still don't know what tools this bastard is using, how he picks his victims, or even if there is a reason, what if they are just random people?" She threw the question out there, trying to get our input on the subject, had she finally been stumped or was this a test again? It was becoming impossible to tell what was what with Anko.

"That…well, I guess…it's something we need to think about, right?" Sakura ventured, looking to Anko for validation.

"Uchiha, your thoughts?" Our leader prompted. It was a test after all.

The only thing Sasuke did was grunt in what was probably agreement. I shook my head in disagreement.

"They can't be random targets, he's going guy/girl every other kills, there is a pattern and a reason, we just don't know it yet. I mean, how can we, these people didn't so much as eat at the same time of day, let alone at the same restaurants!" I gave off the impression that I was exasperated and disappointed with the lack of information we were gathering, there just wasn't any connection. Inside, well, I have much better patience than I show, and I knew it was only a time before this person made a mistake, they all do after a while.

A knock at the door got the other's attention, but not mine. I was so focused on finding out the commonality I didn't hear the frightened server scamper down the hall without asking for a tip. In fact, I didn't even register that Anko had started to eat her room service salad until I heard Sakura complain about not getting to order room service in such a nice hotel.

My eyes snapped upwards, looking at Sakura as if she had just told me the meaning of life. Room service, of course! Except it wasn't room service, it was restaurant service! There was no common thread between our victims, but I bet there is a common thread between restaurants, their supplier! I just had to find the supplier that was killing people, and my job would be half over. The only dilemma now, was weather or not to tell the others. Anko's still eating away and Sakura seems as obsessed with Sasuke as usual. I think I'll hold this little nugget of info to myself for now.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Another day, another twenty restaurants to check out. It might not be very snappy, but hey, it does have the benefit of being true. Each moment I have to hang around with Sakura is another moment that I'm wasting. I can't go around asking about suppliers with my 'girlfriend' when were supposedly on a date. It's not exactly like I can ask her to give me a moment alone either, after yesterday, I know that someone is watching us and this someone has a certain penchant for killing people in as bloody and painful a manner as possible.

"Naruto-kun, I'll be right back, I need to freshen up a bit." My 'date' tells me. In all the time I've spent around her, I don't think I've ever heard Sakura sound more like a girl.

"Okay, don't take too long." I smile and let our hands unclasp as she walks towards the bathroom. As the door closes, I release a huff of air, but even without her near by, I can't afford to let my/our characters slip, even a bit.

"Is everything all right?" Our waitress asks me. Fuck! I hadn't even noticed her coming back!

"Oh yes, everything is great." I tell her thinking on my feet. "Would you be able to tell me who your supplier is? My uncle runs a small ramen stand and I thought I'd pass the name on, it's so fresh!" I gush; this is my chance to find our killer after all.

"Oh sure! We buy all our proteins from this small farm just outside the city, Jirou farms, it's owned by two brothers, Kenji and Kenta, and then we get most of our produce from Chika Farms, the owner, Emi, is very nice, though her son is a bit rude sometimes. I think he resents the fact that she never let him go off to become a ninja." As she's writing the addresses down, I smile a smile that very few have seen and even fewer have lived to tell about. I have my target…

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

That night I was especially on edge, having to sit through hour after hour of Sakura blathering on about whatever, and forcing myself to agree and act as if I gave a shit was more tiring than I thought it might be. And then of course, there was getting through another day of reporting to Anko and convincing her that I had nothing. Not nearly as hard as I thought it might have been…truth be told, I was a little disappointed in that, I expected her to be at least as good as I was at hunting, but apparently I was wrong.

I snuck out the window of the hotel room I was sharing with Sasuke. I'm going to have to do something about him sooner than later. He needs to learn that there are people out there who are much worse than Itachi…people like me.

It takes me just over a half an hour to escape the city unnoticed and make my way to the side of a large barn. This has to be the place; it fits all of the criteria I made earlier. Secluded and quiet enough to complete the job, and no one, except maybe an Inuzuka would recognize the smell of decomposing flesh in the confines of a barn filled with manure, feed and rotting food.

I reach out with my chakra, feeling for any presences inside the edifice, but there are none. It is a talent of mine that I'm better at than anyone I have ever met, including the Hokage. I take a look up to the old farm house uphill from the weather beaten barn I'm about to break into and notice no lights on. There is a festival in town tonight, and if I find what I need to convict in my own court, than I might just get to have a party of my own. The big door is too heavy for me to move, but climbing through the loft door is all too simple for a ninja.

The inky blackness of the barn is easily broken by the small beam of my flashlight as I begin to search. There is no overtly damning evidence, no manacles or bloody knives just laying about the barn, no, that would be too easy. Besides, it's not why I'm in the barn. I drop from the hay loft and begin to inspect the pens of various animals, from horses and goats to pigs and cattle. Nothing in the pens and again, no obvious signs that this is where the butchering is taking place.

It isn't until I check out the troughs that I find the needle in this particularly messy haystack. You probably wouldn't notice the piece of flesh in the pigs feed, except for the black ink of a tattoo on the decomposing skin, what with all the teeth marks on it. It makes me glad I had beef while we were in town…I decide it's probably better that I not tell Sakura about it though…she thought beef was too fattening for her…

I put the rotting flesh back into the wooden bin and begin to head out of the barn an up the hill to the farm house. Tonight will be bloody and I can't wait.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

She's alone right now. All alone, and out at the festival. Great for him, not so much for her. That pink haired girl from yesterday, and today, if he wanted to be proper about it, but where was her boyfriend? The blond was not to be seen, and again, it worried him a bit. It didn't matter, not in the long run. Boyfriend or not, she would be his and then they could spend some quality time together…

His movement was fast, and just as the bitch took a gasp of air in shock, the watcher slapped a rag soaked in chloroform, dosing her heavily with the chemical and she slumped quietly into his grasp. She would be out for a while, which was good, it would take a while to get his prize back to his territory. He smiled as he hid her dozing form in the wagon he transported meats around during the day. No one had connected the gruesome killings that happened around town to him, and it was unlikely that anyone ever would. Not after the message he was going to send with this beauty…

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I watched from the kitchen windows as a lantern light moved slowly from the town up to the farm. Soon the fun would begin. Time became so very slow, the warm yellow glow crept at a snails pace as it wound itself up hills and towards it, and its drivers, final destination. I could almost hear the soothing sounds of my pocket watch; I could almost feel the calming sensation of my knife slicing through flesh.

The wagon finally made it up the final hill, the last obstacle between me and a sweet end to a boring night. It stopped next to the barn door and the hulking driver got down and walked around to open the heavy barn doors. They moved easily, like they were made of paper.

'Better take him out quickly.' I thought as I crept downhill from the farm house.

As my target came back to the wagon, my plans went to hell in a hand basket. Because out of the back of the wagon, the younger brother stood up and was helped down by his much more imposing brother, before they pulled a clearly unconscious (she would've been making a hell of a lot more noise if she hadn't bee conked out) Sakura.

Damn it! Now they had to die! Not that they weren't going to before, but now…if Sakura had been abducted, than Anko would know about it, and that meant I had maybe, _**maybe**_, five minutes to kill both of them and get what I need. This wasn't as fun anymore…

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Jirou Kenta was everything his name suggested. He was the oldest of the brothers, and by far the stronger one. His brown hair was kept short and if I wasn't watching him tie my teammate to the side of a barn, I never would've thought of him as a murderer. Sure he was gigantic, but he seemed to be calm and not prone to the savage and emotion filled knife strikes that littered the other victims. This is where his younger brother Kenji steps in. He was weak looking, and even though he was younger, he seemed to be the leader of the two, ordering Kenta around, telling him what to do…how to restrain my teammate.

I climb up to the hayloft and move around until I'm right above Sakura and I watch the brothers. Kenji's black hair is long and stringy, hanging down in oily clumps. He's watching Sakura's inert form intently…appraising her worth as a mark.

"Kenta, go bring me my tools." He orders and with no sign of hesitation, the older, hulking brother does as he's told. Too bad he won't find them, at least not where I found them. The kitchen drawer really wasn't a very smart place to hide Kumogakure kunai. Stuck out like a sore thumb. It'd be a little more…poetic, if Kenji dies by his own blade, wouldn't it? So do I do him now, or surprise the big guy as he comes back in…decisions, decisions.

It's been only a couple of minutes, but Anko must be half way here by now, so I don't have much time. At least Sakura hasn't shown any signs of waking yet, things would be far too troublesome to deal with if she saw me kill these two.

I can feel Kenta sprinting back from the house now. He knows something is up and is coming to warn his brother, how…revolting. No, I'm afraid that you won't get that chance my dumb comrade. I create a couple shadow clones and send them to intercept the lumbering lackey, before he can alert Kenji.

A moment later the door slides open and Kenta's form is silhouetted in the doorway, the full moon providing enough light to see properly.

"It's about time you got back; I've been waiting long enough." Kenji snapped, not turning his back, just holding out his hand over his shoulder, expecting an implement to be placed there. When one isn't offered, he turns around to yell at his accomplice, but doesn't get the chance. Kenta's large body seems to hand in air for one moment before crumpling like a puppet with it's strings cut, kunai embedded in each arm and leg, and the distinctive line of red around his throat. That's my cue to act as I jump silently down from the loft and sprint behind the little weasel.

"I've never done two in one go before." I whisper menacingly, the rigidity of his body pleases me. "But you and your oafish brother over there made too many mistakes, fifty stab wounds and a crushed skull? If that doesn't scream over kill, I don't know what does." I slit his throat with a smile on his face before he can utter a response, arterial spray gushes forward, landing on the crumpled body of his brother. In a flash my pocket watch is out watching as the great crimson liquid spurts from the small body of Jirou Kenji in rhythm with his own, fading heart beat.

To my utter disappointment, it was hardly ten seconds into the countdown when I heard a gasp of surprise before I became enveloped in the steely coils of a large snake.

"What the hell did you do?" Anko was half angry and half scared. I didn't answer her; my attention was still on the dying/gasping form of Kenji.

'_Thirty Seconds.'_ The mental clock has continued to go on inside my head, even if I can no longer look at the face of my watch.

She must have forgotten about Sakura, until we both heard the unmistakable sound of retching coming from the girl. One of the side effects of chloroform use, I'm just guessing that most of the brother's victims never got to the vomiting stage. Anko rushes over so she can get Sakura down, minimizing the chances that she will choke on her own vomit.

'_One minute-ten seconds.'_

It doesn't take much time, she was only held up by rope to begin with, and soon I hear a thud as Sakura is dropped to the floor.

'_One and a half minutes.'_

"Uchiha." I hear Anko say, but when I don't hear a reply, it dawns on me that she must be using radios. "Meet me outside of Jirou farms, I got Sakura, but she needs to see a doctor and I've got some snooping to do." She waited for a reply and apparently got what she was looking for because she walked out of the barn with Sakura, who despite throwing up all the food she had eaten with me earlier, was still outside.

'_Two minutes-forty seconds…three minutes…three and a half…four minutes.'_ It takes Jirou Kenji four minutes to breathe his last breath, for all that rich blood to drain from his body.

Another five minutes and twenty six seconds later, I heard Anko berate Sasuke for taking so long when his teammate's life was on the line. He must have grumbled something, because I couldn't hear it, but whatever it was, Anko wasn't having any of it, and so by the time I felt Sasuke and Sakura's chakra signature leave the area, Anko had really torn into the boy, using some four letter words that I didn't even know existed.

'And he hasn't even killed someone.' I think. 'I wonder what she'll do to me?' I don't have to think about it for long, because she soon back in the barn, but this time she closes the doors behind her before turning around to face me.

The look of surprise on her face when she see's that I've freed myself from her large python is almost worth the beat down I know I'm in for. I've got three of my four well earned trophies done already, and I'm almost done with the fourth when she locks eyes with me. She pulls a kunai on me and raises it threateningly.

"What the hell Uzumaki, what the fuck are you doing with…are those fingers!?

"Yes." That's all I say, all I need to say at this point. She staring into my eyes more…my dead, soulless eyes.

"Shit! Fuck!" She starts to back up, she's seen into the deepest darkest part of me, the deepest part of the thing called Naruto…and she can't handle what she's seeing."

"You're just like him. JUST LIKE HIM!" She screams at me, and now I know why she's afraid. She expects me to turn into Orochimaru, turn into her former teacher, the one that damaged her so much.

"No, I'm not." I say in a monotone. There isn't any need for fake emotions right now. She knows just about everything and me lying to her isn't going to help her. "I have never killed anyone who hadn't already taken human life, and I have never raised my knife against anyone from Konoha, not a civilian, not a ninja."

"And how am I supposed to take the word of a sociopath?!" She screams. "Why should I trust you?"

I slip my newest trophies into my utility pouch before I answer her.

"Do you trust the Hokage?" I ask. At first she doesn't answer me, she just keeps on staring.

"Of course I trust the Hokage; he's done more for me than I can ever repay him for!" She snaps.

"Well he trusts me. He took me off the streets when I was three, he taught me how to be a better me, how to harness what I can't control. If you trust the Hokage, than you just have to believe me until we get back to Konoha." I don't move forward or backwards. If I scare her now, she might not be able to hold herself together in front of Sasuke and Sakura.

Slowly her breath slowed and returned to normal, her posture fell back to a non frightened stance and she quickly regained her normal (still sadistic, but normal) mindset. Her eyes squeeze shut and she takes a deep breath before she opens them again.

"You're right. I'll have to take your word right now." It's then that I notice a smirk on her face. "Besides, you're much neater than those Neanderthals." She motions to the recently departed brothers. "But in all seriousness, I have to ask you how you got here before I did. No offence or anything, but I'm much faster than you are, so you must have already been here, right?"

I nod my head, glad that things have cooled off.

"I suspected that the murders were being committed by one of the food suppliers, and when I asked around and found out that this was the only two person operation in the city, all I had to do break in here and look around. They were feeding the skin to the pigs, hence why no one ever noticed it."

"Ah, and you knew that if it were a bigger company than the chances of someone finding out were exponentially higher." She deduced.

"Actually, I figured that for one person, all the knife wounds and crushed skull was overkill, but for two people it was just two different MO's."

Anko's face turned into a full out smirk before she turned around and opened the barn doors again and motioned for me to follow her. As we began our trip back into the still celebrating city, she asked me just one more question.

"So, do you not feel anything all the time, or just when you kill people?"

"Whatever made me like this, it just erased everything inside. Although I once thought I felt love." I tell her.

"You thought?"

"It turned out to just be an upset stomach from eating too much ramen."

That got her laughing all the way back to the city.

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

**(A/N: Well, there it is, don't know that I like it all that much, but three more kills for Naruto, and someone figured him out, something I really fell in love with after reading some Dexter fanfics. **

**I was trying to keep you guys guessing as to what was happening, what with dangling Gato out there, and then (trying to) intentionally misleading you as to the real killers. **

**Anyway, thanks to all the reviews from last chapter, hopefully you will like this one, and hopefully you'll let me know if I sucked up the joint via a review for this chappy. Thanks in advance for your reviews, and I look forward to breaking out of my writers block sooner rather than later now.)**


	4. Chapter 4

Deep within Otogakure, the news of the serial murders that had plagued Kokoro had just reached Karin's ears. Not that the murders were news, but that they had stopped was interesting. The brothers were old news to the red head, as she had been the one to discover their tendencies first. Even if they weren't geniuses like Karin, they were good enough to fool every detective and law enforcement agency that had tried to catch them. So for some team of genin to find and take them out, that was something. Immediately after confirming that the diabolically destructive duo had been killed, Karin had set about finding out who had done it.

She arrived at their barn and quickly slipped inside. No one from the town had dared to come inside and remove the bodies, knowing what the brothers did with the remains of their victims, Karin thought it likely that they were still hanging around the toilet bowl, throwing up everything they had ever eaten from the two.

Inside, the bodies lay just as they had fallen to the still unknown ninja. Their blood had long since coagulated and lay in gelatinous pools on the floor. The insects had long since moved into the carcasses and had gone to work laying eggs and stripping dead flesh from the bone. Braving the mass of carrion insects, Karin began inspecting the larger of the Kenta brothers, Jirou. Tendons in his arms and legs had been cut, and there were puncture wounds on his thighs and arms, farther reducing his ability to fight back. Then there was the death blow, one swift slice along the neck, transecting the jugular vein and windpipe cleanly. Death was swift, but not instant. He lay face down in the dirt, just inside the great doors of the barn, unlike his brother, Kenji, who lay on his back, eyes and mouth open in terror, obviously who ever had done this had the element of surprise. The cuts appeared to be made by the very instruments that the brothers favored, very smart, if you didn't want your own knives to be hunted...

Speaking of the distinctive kunai, they too lay on the ground, whoever offed these two has their own set of favored tools. Overall, the job was very professional, clean slices, steady hand. If the index fingers from both victims weren't missing than it would be easy to believe that a ninja did this. But ninja didn't claim body parts as trophies. Sure, weaponry and sometimes clothing were fair game, but body parts fell strictly into the realm Karin inhabited.

"You're late." Karin monotoned, not looking up from her appraisal of the dead bodies.

The new figure dropped down from the rafters of the barn and walked up to the scientist. She was a bit shorter than Karin, but her hair was just as red, though they preferred to keep it underneath a bandanna, while Karin let hers flow freely.

"So sorry, ane (older sister), but the fag has been unbearable now that he's got Suna's support." Tayuya mock saluted her sister, before looking over the corpses. "Fucker's messed up." She remarked, her voice showing no surprise or remorse. "Anyone we know?"

Had they been normal siblings, than Karin would have thought she was asking about the dead bodies. But they weren't normal, and Tayuya didn't give a shit about the ex-murderers before her.

"Check out the hands." Tayuya's dark eyes fell to the four fingered appendage and a smile crept across her normally stoic features.

"Is it really-?"

"Yup." Karin cut her younger sibling off.

"Both of them?"

Another response in the affirmative and the grin spread even farther across Tayuya's face. She turned and locked eyes with her sister.

"He's come so far. To think he's gotten this good, almost makes you proud, doesn't it?" She asked, gazing back over the bodies, almost lovingly now that she knew who was responsible for this display.

"I know what you mean." Karin answered, eyes following her sisters, letting them take in the entire scene. "They weren't the best, but they were good, and from what I've heard, he sniffed 'em out in just a couple of days."

"Impressive." Tayuya tore her eyes away from the masterful work and watched Karin ponder for a moment. When her fellow red head looked up and locked eyes again, she had the largest grin on her face that Tayuya could remember. This wasn't a look of joy though, but pure predatory lust. A similar grin split Tayuya's mouth open.

"You mean-"

"Yes." Karin cut her sister off again. "It's about time we payed our dear sweet otouto a visit..."

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

It's been a couple of weeks since we returned from our mission to Kokoro. With Kakashi-sensei still hung up with his mission in Wave, we were put on the inactive roster until he got back. It wasn't that Anko was a bad substitute, in fact, she actually petitioned to keep training our team until Kakashi returned, but the old man thought it might be wisest to create some space between me and her, at least for the time being. Then there was the fact that Sakura needed to be mentally cleared for work, after her experience, it was a pretty traumatic thing after all. And Sasuke...well there was a horse of another color completely. Now that the had seen what people like me are capable of, he had to be taught the difference between his brother and myself. Obviously I couldn't just walk up to him and have a heart to heart talk, so I had to be creative about my delivery.

For someone who has lived their entire life trying to blend in with the shadows and become invisible, trying to grab someone's attention is trickier than you might imagine. You have two good vehicles to grab someone's attention, color and bright lights, not exactly the most covert way to go about a task such as this, or you have to catch their interest with something either deeply profound, or just over the top silly. And how do you make what I do funny?

The scroll I've got in my hand is merely an opening salvo in a war to try and stop Sasuke from turning into me, he's dangerously close as it is, and if I push too hard or fail, than he's off the edge of a cliff from which there is no return. I don't have time tonight to dally around and make sure he reads this, so I'll have to do what I can to pique his interest now, and hope that he takes my bait.

The scroll just thumps against his heavy wooden door, but it should be enough to get his attention, if it were love letters from his many admirers, they probably would've broken the window. Sure enough a puzzled looking Sasuke opens the door and looks over the new addition to his doorway. He picks it up and looks at the completely flat wax sealing the tome shut. This isn't a fan girls marriage proposal, they want him to know who they are. That, added with the fact that it didn't break his window, are signs that it was thrown by someone with some sense of skill, and although he would never show it, I know, in Sasuke's mind, that skilled, and being a man are the same thing.

So unless he's been getting a disproportionate amount of love letters from Konoha's homosexual population, he'll have no reason not to open my missive. Sure enough, he pops the seal on the scroll and I can watch his black eyes roam over my words. They grow bigger with each word, and I know that he's hooked. I can leave now knowing full well that he'll continue to read until the end, the only thing I can do is wait and hope that something sinks in.

Besides, I do have a scroll of my own that the old man gave me, and the lovely 'F' written on the top of it is begging me to open it up. As expected, once I breach the wax seal, there is an overview of the exploits of another serial murderer. All it says is that there have been over thirty bodies attributed to this guy, though no information on the victims or MO. It's way less than I normally get, and it interests me that someone can kill thirty people and no one has any clue as to who they are or what they look like. Oddly, there isn't even a description of the bodies, but a note to go to the Hokage's office for further details. He never takes a personal interest in my contemporaries, so why now? Nothing to do but find out...

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

As usual, the Hokage is sitting at his desk, signing and filling out various forms. Without looking up he acknowledges my arrival with a "Good evening, Naruto-kun." to which I reply and wait for him to finish his current work. It doesn't take him long and soon he is leading me to the basement of the Hokage's office building, where I know there are not only vaults of files and information, but also a passageway to an underground tunnel system that can take you to any military instillation in the city. Our current destination seems to be part of the ANBU barracks, but it isn't until we arrive at a pair of metallic double doors, that I realize just where in the barracks we've gone.

It's the morgue.

It would appear the the old man has an example for me, at least it explains the lack of written information. He strolls over to one of the coolers that house whatever bodies have been returned to Konoha, usually those of ANBU that have died on missions. Upon opening the refrigerated steel door, a white, sheet covered body is slid out, but instead of easing the tension in the room and showing me the corpse, the Hokage proceeds to open a further three drawers and pulls out the corresponding bodies as well. He stepped backwards and allowed me to pull the covers from the cold and naked bodies.

The Y shaped incisions form the autopsy stood out against the paleness that death brings. I start from the heads and move downward slowly. The first thing that became apparent was that the hair had been dyed blond. Originally three of the four had been brunettes and the last had been a red head, with just a hint of gray showing through. Two of the bodies, I note, were sisters, one a couple of years older than the other.

The next, and frankly most important thing, was that their necks had been sliced and very nearly removed. A shiver ran down my spine, though it wasn't from the surroundings. That was my father's MO. It's one of those clues that could mean everything or nothing. If only one of the necks is like than, then our killer probably just got too excited and yanked too hard. But three of the four bodies had the same tiny, impeccably small flap of skin keeping their heads attached to their bodies. The only exception was the red head, whose head had been completely removed, but not cleanly. The cut was somehow emotional, which made this body more important than the other three. What did my compatriot have against this woman?

The final body was the only one I recognized, even remotely. Her name was Masuyo Akemi and she was an associate of Gato, just like my ninth playmate. In fact, she was the one who pimped out the children that the 'Nanny' would abduct. Ran the operation from a medical clinic she owned. Guys came in for a 'check-up' and left with a smile on their face.

For a moment I wonder if maybe there is someone else like me out there, another 'do-good, avenger'. I doubt it, my skills truly aren't meant to save lives, unlike a normally functioning human or ninja.

"Were any of them ninja?" I ask, continuing to scan downward, no signs of aggression to the chest area, all the brutality seems concentrated on the neck.

"No, but Masuyo is the only one who wasn't from Konoha." He pauses for a while and watches me work. "The ANBU profiler thinks that we're dealing with an Iwa pattern killer, probably someone who lost a close one to your father."

"And you want me to prove him wrong. I see." I pull the sheet down to one of the woman's waists and stop. "Or was this why you brought me down here?" I lift the right hand of the body I'm looking and and display only four fingers. The index fingers had been cleanly removed.

He sighs. He's looking old again.

"Naruto-kun, if you tell me you didn't do that, then I'll believe you, but only you, Anko and I know-"

"My MO, yeah, I get. I swear, Jiji, I didn't kill them." His deep brown eyes lock onto my hollow blue ones, and after a minute, he relaxes.

"You and I both know that profile's a load of shit, but these body's won't help you build a profile of the killer."

His old gray brow furrows in confusion. "I don't understand."

"I'm guessing that the only thing these four have in common with the other twenty six bodies, is that they're women. These four, are messages."

"Messages? Why would they warn you that they're targeting you?"

"That's where you're wrong, old man." I smile, a true smile, for the first time since that night all those years ago when the man before me took me in and gave me purpose. "Whoever did this, they aren't targeting me, at least not in the way you think. It's more like I'm being...recruited. These are an homage to me." I laugh at the absurdity of that statement. Someone who is far more accomplished than I, paying me respect? Laughable.

"The sisters correspond to the Kenta brothers, Masuyo is my 'Nanny', and the last one would be equivalent to Mizuki. They've taken my last four kills to show how much about me they know. It's kinda like an invitation."

"Anything else?" He asks.

I shrug my shoulders. "They know about my heritage and the target's probably a blonde, and that the red head was somehow more important to whoever did this, that's all I can say right now."

I replaced the sheets and returned the bodies to their fridges, just as I had found them, and we left for the evening.

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

Tayuya and Karin had returned to the farm where their new 'base' was. The inside had been completely remodeled, no animals, no troughs, no dead bodies to clutter up the floor, at least not right now. Tayuya was playing with a kunai and Karin was reading up on the latest reports she had received from Otogakure.

"How long do you think it'll take him?" Tayuya asked, breaking the comfortable silence that the sisters had going.

"It won't be too long, once he figures out our message, the three of us can be a family again, and once that happens, the Namikaze can have their revenge.

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

**(A/N: Well, I know it's shorter than usual, but I wanted to get something done. Anyway, I hope I haven't made it too obvious who's being targeted, anyone has any guesses, let me know. I'm not saying weather I'll tell you or not, but I always like to see what people think of my story. **

**Anyway, thanks for all the wonderful reviews from the last chapter, and I hope I'll get a bunch of them for this one. **

**Anyway, I thought I wish everyone a good week and leave you with a piece of advice, straight from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.**

"**What to do if you find yourself stuck with no hope of rescue: Consider yourself lucky that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far, which given your present circumstances seems more likely, consider yourself lucky that it won't be troubling you much longer."**)


	5. Chapter 5

In my dream, I'm sort of floating over Konoha. Just sitting there, really, except that I've got to be a hundred feet in the air, and no one seems to have noticed. Of course, the giant red fox attacking in the distance might explain that. I don't move towards it, like the ninja I can observe from my dizzying perch, nor am I fleeing from it like the civilians.

From the horizon the sounds of battle crescendo to a roar, which the demon that currently resides in my stomach matches with a roar of his own. I can make out jets of fire aiming for the beast's eyes, only to have no effect. Then, in one golden flash, all the noise of the battle stops for an instant. My father has arrived and with him, me.

He too is suspended in midair, though his platform is the back of a toad almost as large as the Kyuubi itself. For the one instant that all noise ceased, the fox eyes my father, wondering how much of a nuisance the new fly will cause.

Then he lunges! It's so fast that none of the ninja who were engaged in battle before can do anything about it, but while the fox is in mid flight, there is another flash of light from the battlefield, and a near simultaneous scream of "Kaa-san!". Then, I wake up.

I shake the accumulated sweat from my limp hair. I clutch at my palpitating heart. I'm not used to this. Ever since the old man showed me those bodies, I've been having this dream...well, that might be a bit rash. It's only been two days since he showed me the bleached and nearly decapitated bodies, but each night I've had the same dream, and I don't dream. Not often, at least, and never two days in a row.

Something about that dream, the girl crying for her mother, perhaps, is bothering me. Not in the way that an answer on the tip of your tongue bothers you, this is pulling on my non-existent heart strings.

Something about that scream is causing me pain.

The waxing moon in the night sky lights up my face and beckons me to get up. There is no going back to sleep at five am for me, and besides, I don't want to have that dream again.

Three hours later, my head is a bit clearer, but not by much. I'm still jarred by that dream...that vision. That sound. What is it about that scream that has shaken me so deeply to my core?

Unconsciously I've made my way to our team's meeting place. As surprised as I am that my mind has somehow chosen this place instead of my father's head, I'm even more shocked to find that both my teammates are here as well. Sakura has deep dark bags beneath her puffy eyes. She hasn't been able to sleep since her abduction, even though she was unaware for the most part, the fact that someone could just sneak up on her, a ninja, was unsettling.

Sasuke was even worse off, staring into the slowly babbling stream, watching his reflection waver and distort. Either Itachi came back last night and stopped in for dinner, or something I wrote hit him.

In all were quite the pathetic bunch. Sakura's re-evaluating her existence based on something she doesn't even remember, Sasuke, his entire life's goal (hopefully) brought into question based on the writings of a deeply devoid murderer, and me. Scared into feeling, _actually feeling_, for the first time in recent memory. The last time I felt so...human...was before I met the Sandaime. Before my first.

For a while we all just stood there, each keenly aware of the others presence, but not breaking the fragile early morning peace. Slowly the streets became more crowded, and the din of the the work day began to overpower our quiet sanctuary. Still we made no motion to leave our little piece of the world, until the loud, brash woman who had acted as our captain/sensei for our mission dropped by.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say that Ichiraku must've closed for good, and Sasuke just figured out that he's gay." She chided, only then noticing the looks on our faces.

"Oh my god, they did, and he is!" She began to laugh, clutching her sides for effect. When no one bothered to refute her claims she finally became serious.

"Well, if it'll make you feel better, Kakashi and Asuma just got back in. If you hurry, you might be able to catch them."

For whatever reason, each of us must have thought that to be a good idea, because ten minutes later, we'll all standing outside the Hokage's office, waiting for our absent teacher to finish his report.

It isn't long before the door opens and out walks our sensei along with Asuma and team ten. They all seem weary and beat up, and don't even notice our presence. Even when Kakashi-sensei greets us and inquires about our long faces, they don't respond.

"We had a bit of a close call on our mission." I'm left to reply as I subtly nod my head towards Sakura.

Kakashi realizes what that means in the context of an F rank mission, and he quickly becomes appropriately worried.

"Why don't we go somewhere and you can tell me all about it." He quickly ushers us out to a secluded section of the nearest training field and begins our 'therapy'. The only problem is that none of us seem like talking right now. We just sit there, Sakura's memorizing the thread count of her dress and Sasuke is shifting his gave between Kakashi and a stone at our teacher's feet.

Me? Despite my need to act normal around my unsuspecting teammates, I'm little better off. I've been running on automatic since before Kakashi decided we needed to come out here, and I'm just staring off into space, just to the left of Kakashi's graying head.

"Well, if no one's going to volunteer, I'll have to pick one of you to start." He threatens. It'll take more than-

"It was terrible!" Sakura sobs.

Ok, maybe I was wrong.

"There were these brothers, who were killing people and feeding their remains to their farm animals." She blurts, tears welling up in her eyes, but not falling. She goes on to explain every detail of our mission, from my superior profiling, to Sasuke's wasted involvement searching around the city. When she recounted her abduction, Kakashi actually stepped forward and tried to comfort her, even though he was clearly unused to having to do so.

I know what it's like, to feel completely alien when trying to perform such a simple human gesture. Now he does too.

"Sakura." He says, holding her shoulders and forcing her into eye contact. "There isn't anything you can do to change what's already happened."

Pftt, I could've done better.

"So you'll just have to improve yourself, make sure that you're never put in a situation like that again. Make sure that no one you care about has to live through what you've experienced."

It's nothing but an emotional band aid, and if it wasn't exactly what Sakura needed, I would be disappointed in Kakashi, for leaving one of his students high and dry in their most vulnerable hour.

Sakura seems to be rejuvenated at the news that all she needs to do is get stronger. Her tears dry up and her face sets in a new fashion, one that displays her resolve to never be weak again.

"So, Naruto, what's eating you?" He turns his attention to me. Now isn't the time for some soul wrenching story about how my dream are causing me emotional pain, which would be odd, because I don't have emotions. No, it's time for me to leave anyway, I don't want to be here, so I'll just have to lie.

"I've just been worried about Sakura so much that I haven't been getting enough sleep." I smile and rub the back of my head like nothing is wrong. He keeps looking at me. He didn't buy it, shit.

"Okay, okay." I'll have to try again. "It's just that, with how easily I was able to get into those psychopaths heads, I'm a little worried. I mean, what's keeping me from doing something similar? Or worse?"

His stare lessens. Good, he's bought it.

"The fact that you're asking yourself that question, is a good sign, Naruto. If you were truly like them, you wouldn't have any doubts. You'd just do things without thought or question. You'd have no conscious to cast second guesses onto your actions."

I feign relief. What else is there to do? Kakashi turns to Sasuke, and before the question is even out of his mouth, the Uchiha has tossed a scroll, my scroll at Kakashi. Our sensei gives off an air of curiosity, breaking the seal once more and perusing the contents.

"I think it might be best if the two of you left Sasuke and I to talk alone." He ordered after reading only a couple of sentences. "We'll get together tomorrow at our usual time for training."

Finally! Now I can get away from my team and try and clear my head. The sun seems especially warming today, and I feel the sudden urge to go lay atop my father's head. Maybe our combined thoughts can make sense of my current nightmarish dilemma. It isn't a terribly long trek, and I am soon at one of my favorite places in all of the village. There isn't a rain cloud in the sky and the sun is even warmer at this altitude. It's so nice out that I just lay on the warm stone and let my mind empty.

* * *

Kakashi had dismissed Sasuke after an hour of discussion about the letter. This...manifesto had done what no psychologist or Yamanaka had been able to do before. It had shaken Uchiha Sasuke. The boy was so frightened of his future, so scared that his current path would lead to his damnation, that he hadn't been able to sleep since he first received it.

And Kakashi couldn't blame him. The writing was nothing but psychotic drivel. But it happened to be the truth. He looked over it again.

_**Uchiha Sasuke, you don't know me, at least not the real me. The me that takes enjoyment from killing others. You might have seen the me that I show the world, the me that has everyone fooled. For all you know, that me might be a comrade of yours, or even a teacher. I'm sending you this letter as a welcome to our fraternity. The brotherhood of sociopaths and serial killers.**_

_**You sit there, reading this, and denying every thing that I've written. You're nothing like me, Itachi was the psychopath, not you. You could never become what that evil brother of yours is. Never take joy from the death of innocent people. Yet you haven't even determined who is innocent and who is truly guilty. Here's a news flash. Itachi had help.**_

_**You've dedicated your life to revenge, to killing your brother, since the day he massacred your family. And of course, now you have a second person to kill for assisting in your clan's destruction. This is the first step to joining our ranks. You want to kill your brother so badly, that you've dedicated your life to it. Just like Itachi dedicated himself to the destruction of your clan. You have more in common than you think.**_

_**I can see your reaction in my head clearly. You're fuming and possibly cussing. Just because Itachi killed people, and you want to kill Itachi, doesn't make you same. You're screaming at the injustice of being compared to a certified deranged maniac. Yes, I can see you quite clearly. I am inside your twisting and shadowed mind, which is why I can help you see into your future.**_

_**I'm sure you have grandiose dreams of standing over the body of your brother, victorious, his corpse laying low under your powerful feet. You've done exactly as he instructed you to. You became strong enough to kill him, you drowned so far in your hatred that you devoted your life, the life he spared you, to killing him.**_

_**That's your glorified version. You want to know the reality of the situation? You may very well grow up and defeat your brother. It'll be a long and protracted fight, as he is such a worthy opponent, and you couldn't help but jump at the first opportunity you had to end his life. His body will lie in a pool of his own blood, blood that you spilled, the elixir of his life slowly seeps from his corpse, forced just a bit faster when you plant your foot on his carcass. When you kill him, his bowels and bladder will release themselves, so you'll have to make sure that you don't step in your brothers own waste.**_

_**Will his eyes be open or closed? In your mind, I bet their closed. Why do the dead need to see? Especially someone as evil as your brother? Truthfully, they'll probably be open, widened, in fact, by the shock that you actually were able to do the deed he tasked you with.**_

_**In your mind, you'll feel a great sense of relief. Relief that the most heinous of Konoha's missing ninja are dead, relief that your family can now rest in piece. Who knows, maybe even relief that someone you care for won't have to fear for their lives.**_

_**In actuality, your brother's death won't bring any emotion forth. There won't be any sense of relief, no weight lifted from your shoulders. No loved one to tell you that you did a good and righteous thing. Do you know why?**_

_**It's because, by the time you can kill your brother, you'll be like me. You won't feel anything at all when you end your brother's life. You're lack of emotions makes loving anyone impossible, so no loved one to come home to. The most you'll ever feel at the time is a sense of...vitality. You'll feel alive, as his blood, still warm from his arteries, spreads onto the ground. As it slides down your skin, leaving faint lines as it does so. **_

_**It's a feeling that I, and by this time, you won't ever be able to get enough of or satisfy. The rush of adrenaline as you bring someone's life to an end is just...pure nirvana. You'll get used to the smell quickly enough, by the time you've killed your third or fourth human, it doesn't bother me any more. To feel your victims pulse beneath their skin, just before you cause it to stop, the look in their eyes. These are all things that I still look forward to every time I allow myself to run freely. **_

_**Oh, and you will start to refer to them as human beings. Creatures like us cannot count ourselves amongst their population. They feel things, they are slaves to their emotions. We've cast off such baggage, we've became exactly what every ninja aspires to be. An emotionless killing machine. Except that it won't just be enemy ninjas and rounin. The lady who runs the corner fruit stand. After a while, you'll begin to imagine that her blood would be much prettier outside of her body. The kindly old man who has given you discounts on clothing ever since your family was murdered. He'll be found one day, throat slashed or sword in his back, and no one will come forward to claim responsibility. And then, one day, perhaps one day soon, that child that worshiped you for your 'good deed' will disappear. Just vanish from the face of the earth. Yo u see, the line between genius and insanity is indeed very thin, and you stand far closer than you realize. You make the wrong decision, take a wrong step, and that line is crossed and you can't go back.**_

_**This inciting future can, and at present course, will be yours. Unless you step back from the edge and stop your madness now. Unlike me, you can stop the black hole from ever forming in your chest. Stop the madness that threatens your world. **_

_**Grow stronger and hate me? **_

_**Will you follow your brother's advice, the insane one, the one who was pulled so far from humanity that he murdered his mother and father in cold blood without so much as a tear? Will you avenge your clan by killing your heart, to kill him? **_

_**Or will you not follow your murderous siblings advice. Will you spite him, his words, his instructions and live well?**_

The only thing more chilling than the images painted by this...creature as he had called himself, was the thought that whoever it was, could get close enough to Sasuke to throw this at his door without being spotted. What was to stop this psychopath from murdering Sasuke instead of leaving a chilling but mostly harmless letter?

It was something that a caring and worried party would do. A sociopath with a conscious? Unheard of. But a sociopath with an arbitrary set of rules? Something that would keep him from hurting Sasuke? That sounded like something the Sandaime might do. He needed to talk with the old Hokage.

* * *

**(A/N: Well, though I'd get this out there, I thought I'd show you guys what Sasuke read. I don't know, it seems kinda sappy and cliched, but maybe it's not as bad as I'm imagining. **

**Anyway, thanks for all the reviews for the last chapter, though there were fewer than I had hoped for, I know you can't control this type of thing, so I'm just glad that some of you took the time to leave a note about what you thought of the story, and hopefully more people will do the same this chapter.**

**Till next time.)**


	6. Chapter 6

Human beings kill for many different reasons, it could be for food, for money or even fame. People kill over differences in beliefs and over differences on maps. I don't kill for any of those reasons. I kill to feel alive, to feel anything. The adrenaline pumping through my veins, the smell of blood and steel in the air, they give me sensation in my own numb world.

And right now that feeling is more intense than I've ever felt it! The normally cool steel in my hand has been heated quickly by my body heat as I watch the empty streets before me. The thought of what I'm about to do hypnotizes and excites me; every move I am to make I've planned out in my head, the order, the method, everything within my power has been planned out and thought through.

Despite my enthusiasm for my task, I'm not out on my own tonight. This night, I'm an agent of my village, tasked with sending a message to it's enemies. A message I've been instructed to write in blood and post publicly.

My targets are not particularly evil men, though they are far from innocent. They've never killed, raped, molested or abused anyone, at least, not directly. Yet these five people, four men and a woman, have blood on their hands. My first target it in a lavish hotel room below me, sleeping off the handover he gave himself earlier on in the night.

Gaining entrance to Takanabe-san's hotel room was as simple as picking the lock, a sure sign that this town didn't deal with ninja very often. Yamamoto Takanabe was a fat man who enjoyed spending the millions he had inherited from his rich father on food, drink and women. Tonight was one of the rare times when his bed wasn't shared with one hooker or another and I was going to take full advantage of that.

I stand over his snoring mass and contemplate where to cut him first...the choices delight me as they race through my mind before my arm acts almost on its own. My first knife embeds itself into his throat, perpendicular with the mattress. Takanabe's eyes peel open and his mouth gapes wide, but no sound will come from him. Before he can reach for the first blade, my next two pin his hands to the headboard and I feel my heart race as I watch his silent final moments. The only sound in the room is the occasional dripping noise as the mattress becomes super saturated and cannot contain all the liquid that I'm spilling onto it as well as the comforting ticking of my watch.

It takes just over three and a half minutes for the fat man to bleed out, and I close my eyes and breath deeply for the first time since I entered his room. The feeling is purely cathartic, but I have to hold onto some of my desire, I have my trophies to collect and four more to add tonight.

Sneaking into the hallway, I'm held up for a moment by the sight of a drunk couple, room door half ajar, ripping each other's clothes off and grasping at each other's bodies as if they were drowning.

It was sickening.

Once I'm back on the roof, it's just a matter of leaping onto a lamp post and then swinging hand over hand across the street on a banner advertising the grand opening of a new barbecue stand. I'm across the empty streets in no time and making my way down the rear of my second victim's store. I know every brick of this store, every nuance of the wall I'm walking down. I've been watching all my victims for days now, a luxury I do not always have. Yukitake Arata's store was well kept, the floors were cleaned daily and the shelves stocked at the end of business every night. Sure, the laundry detergent might have been a bit pricey, but on average, the goods were of outstanding quality and reasonably priced.

Arata slept on the second floor, directly above his cash registers. He was in good health and though he was beginning to gray a bit, considered handsome by the women of the town. Had he cared for anything besides his store, maybe he would have found someone to love, but alas, the store was Arata's wife and mistress. The trek from his rear door, up the stairs and into his room was made longer by the pounding of the blood in my ears. I felt the adrenaline return to my system and the ecstasy begin to build.

His breathing is deep and even, beneath his eyelids I can see the movement of REM sleep and wonder about exactly what he's dreaming. Whatever he saw, I doubt is was a eight inch chef's knife being driven into his heart. His final breath rattles against the hand I have clasped over his mouth but his eyes do not open. There isn't even enough time to retrieve my time keeper, I've killed him too quickly, a cardinal sin for sure, but as I said, tonight isn't all about me.

After quickly taking my prizes, I'm back out the door and onto victim three on the night. Soujiro and Nina Hiroto have been married for nearly five years now, but their careers have kept them from having children just yet. Perhaps it is for the best, now I won't be orphaning any children when I kill them. He is a lawyer, in a town this size he's one of only a handful, so while his specialty is defense, depending on the situation he has been called on to represent the public on a number of occasions. Nina refers to herself as a gardener, but in reality, she's a stay-at-home mother with no children to raise.

They live in a moderately priced two story home just outside the main square of town, Only a ten minute walk from Ukitake's store. Living outside the city, even just this little bit, must have made the couple feel safe, because they never bothered to lock the back door when they turned in for the night, not that it would have changed this particular outcome. For whatever reason, the master bedroom was on the bottom floor, Nina had turned the up stairs into a hope office/library and was quite pleased with herself.

My first stop inside their home was the kitchen, I needed to borrow a couple of their knives for this. Once I had what I needed, I stole towards their bed, taking a moment to commit their sleeping forms to memory before I started. I moved to the left side of the bed and watched Soujiro's deep breathing. For some reason, the rise and fall of his chest became hypnotizing and my own respirations began to mimic his. In and out, inhale, exhale. So melodic and rhythmic! To stop such a symphony mid stride was almost too painful to do.

Almost.

The pain is what wakes him up, but the shock is what starts me laughing. You see, this couple is going to be a bit different than what I usually do. So instead of slicing his neck or skewering his heart, I first peeled his eyelids off. If you've never seen someone try and open their eyelids when they aren't there, it's quite funny, I assure you. His mouth opens to make a sound but I don't let him. Using one of his own dirty socks, I gag him before just as his wife wakes up due to his struggling.

It takes her a moment to process a dark form over her husband holding a knife, but quickly she puts two and two together and bolts from the bed, right into the arms of my shadow clone. She too tries to alert someone, anyone to her plight, but my clone's hand is keeping her quiet for now. He slides her own paring knife through her spinal cord, paralyzing her from her stomach south.

Her powerless legs collapse and she plummets towards the ground, but is held up by my clone, who tosses her back onto the bed. Until this point, Soujiro has been too shocked to fight back. Seeing his wife have her back broken must have jolted him to consciousness, and despite the blood flowing into his eyes, I'm forced to subdue him with the handle of the cleaver I've lifted from their kitchen. Nina must watch with wide eyes as I start my work.

The term for this is vivisection. If you've never heard of it, I won't be offended, it's not something that gets thrown around in conversation a lot. 'Hey, did you see that great vivisection on TV last night?' You never hear that. Let me say this. If Soujiro were dead, it would be called a dissection or autopsy. No anesthesia and a whole lot of blood and pain. It's messy, smelly and entirely too slow for my liking, hence why I've never done one until now.

The make a classic Y shaped incision, running from either side of his neck to just over the center of his rib cage, and then down to his navel. It takes me a few minutes, but I soon peel the skin away from the muscle and slice through his abdominal muscle wall to expose his intestines. I can't get to any of the organs inside his rib cage because his diaphragm impedes me from the bottom and I can't reach through his rib cage. Once I cut that, his breathing will all but stop and he'll suffocate in moments. Instead I take the heavy cleaver and use it's weight to help me crack his rib cage right down each side and take of the breast plate, giving me unfettered access to his organs. But this is where I stop, for now. He's passed out due to the shock and pain, and so I move on to his wife.

She takes a bit longer, but soon both are in the same state, and in equal realms of unconsciousness. With two quick slices, I cut through their diaphragms and just to be sure, I slice into their lungs and wait. It has taken me fifteen minutes to do this to these people and I've just doubled the amount of time that it took me to kill Yamamoto and Ukitake _and_ get to this house. I don't like it.

Looking at the gore and viscera I've caused, I pause...it doesn't feel wrong, but it doesn't give me that rush that I live for. Given the chance, I'll never do this again. It's time to move on, only one is left for tonight, the big one. The head honcho. The Mayor.

His house is a mansion, three floors, four wings and over two and a half acres of total land taken up. There's some guards, but since the mayor is only important to the people of the town, nothing that a good gennin shouldn't be able to sneak past. On the inside it's a maze of doors and rooms leading to nothing and containing...not a lot. It's a poor town, and this mansion was taxing enough on the economy, to fill it would ruin the town. Hiroshi Daisuke is just old enough to be considered wise, but young enough to still be controlled by someone stronger. He's an ineffective politician and the only reason that the people of this town don't rebel and kill him themselves, is that he's the Daimyo's favorite cousin's father. Not favorite uncle, merely he had the fortune to be related to the Daimyo's favorite cousin.

For all his flaws, being related so closely to the Daimyo should have afforded him better security, but alas, his son disliked him half the time and only tolerated him the other half. I guess he didn't care what his father did, as long as he didn't have to deal with him.

I got into the house with no problem, having only a perimeter guard was obviously not enough, and it didn't get much better inside. The two guards that were supposed to be guarding the Mayor's bed chambers, were instead, guarding an empty bottle of sake and doing so in the kitchen. I got next to Daisuke's bed without encountering a single person.

I never really thought about it before now, but there wasn't a lot that I had to do. With the rest of my victims, they weren't very important, so their deaths had to be more and more shocking to cause the effect I wanted. But this man, this man was the mayor! The Daimyo's uncle! I could have poisoned him and the mere fact that he was dead would have caused the panic and fear that I wanted.

I glanced at the expensive grandfather clock on the wall, it was growing early in the morning, I should finish this quickly if I wanted to have enough time to get away cleanly. I look at the sleeping visage of the Mayor and make up my mind. Hiroshi Daisuke will never wake again. I see a set of swords on the dresser and quickly take the katana from it's sheath. It's a fine piece of metallurgy, don't get me wrong, but I'll still take a good kunai any day of the week.

I walk back to the bed and instead of the usual euphoria I would feel, this feels like a chore. I've never killed more than two people at once before and that old saying seems to have been proven true. I plunge the ornate sword right through Daisuke's rib cage and it easily pierces his heart. I take the time to verify my kill, but then I quickly leave my message and make my way out of the mansion and eventually out of the city. When I am far enough away to drop my disguise and get a hotel room, I fall asleep as soon as I touch the bed.

It's true what they say, mass murder is the most exhausting thing one can participate in...except for soccer.

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

After my surprisingly peaceful sleep, I made my way back to Konoha in three hours. Twenty minutes after passing through over the gates (My mission was sanctioned, but it would be very odd for a gennin to be going on a solo mission, so I had to sneak out to complete it) I was in the Hokage's office delivering my report.

"I'm sure that by now, the five bodies have been discovered, Hokage-sama. If they get the message, you'll know in the next couple of days. If they are too dumb to recognize it, than they will put out the word for help." The point of my mission was to strike fear into the citizens of the small boarder town in Rice Country. The five I had killed had all supported Orochimaru in some indirect way. Either money, goods or safe passage. They didn't strictly fit the code, yet they helped Orochimaru to murder and kill everyday he sat in their land.

"That's good Naruto." There's a pause. "How are you, I know that this doesn't fit your code..." Then that probing look. If I answer incorrectly I may never be given this type of mission again.

"I didn't like it, in comparison that is. The idea is...intriguing, but those people just didn't feel right." I answer truthfully. I passed whatever test this was and the Hokage smiles at me with a mixture of warmth and worry.

"I want you to know that I won't be sending you on any more of these types of mission until you're older. This is the first real test of your code and I'm glad that it has held firm, despite everything you went through. The moment that you can no longer follow that code...I don't know if I'll be able to help you, Naruto."

I've gotten this speech before, but despite it's worn out message, I'm glad to hear it again. In the aftermath of my mission I want to be reminded of the edge, less I get too close and tumble off.

"You're dismissed, go home and get some rest. If I'm right, than you and you're team will be heading back to Rice country in the next week or so and Jiraiya wants to train with you some more."

Tsunade, the Godaime still doesn't trust me completely, and I understand her concern. I kill for the thrill of it, most ninja who do that go rouge and kill whoever they can to get away. But I'm still loyal to this village, to the Hokage and that's not going to change. It will just take me a while to prove that to her.

On my way home I stop and take a look at the stone visage of the Sandaime on the mountain overlooking the village. It's been just about a month since he died, killed by Orochimaru in his failed invasion attempt during the chuunin exams. I was fighting Sabaku no Gaara, the Kazekage's youngest son, who happened to be the vessel for the Ichibi, Shukaku. In the end we beat each other to our limits and couldn't kill the other. Due to Sasuke and Sakura being around to witness the battle, I had to fight the entire time in the character they were used to seeing and somehow, by lying through my teeth, I seemed to have changed Gaara for the better.

I don't understand it, but from what I've heard, he's becoming respected by the ninja of Suna. Go figure.

With the death of my father figure, Konoha, as well as myself, was left without someone to guide them and Jiraiya, my substitute sensei and godfather were sent to retrieve the third member of the Sannin, Tsunade.

I know that most people describe insanity as a cliff that one falls off of, but to me, it's a bit more subtle. I've always seen my self as the little kid who went swimming and got swept out too far. The Sandaime was an anchor, keeping me from going farther off the deep end, but not reeling me in any. With his death, I felt myself washing farther out from shore. Jiraiya was able to serve as another anchor and for that I cannot thank him enough.

Eventually we found her and after a week of training and a huge battle involving all three sannin and their summons, the Godaime Hokage returned to Konoha. I was able to complete one of my father's original techniques, the rasengan and in the process, partially won the trust of the woman who controlled my ability to hunt.

Seeing his face carved in stone, and knowing that I will never see it in person again is...disheartening. I know that I should be saddened. I should be crushed, he was the closest thing to a father that I had. He taught me everything that I know and trained me to be what I am.

I was lucky at the funeral. It was raining. But then, just like now, nothing comes from my eyes. I don't feel depressed, I don't feel sad and I don't feel like the world has crumbled around me. I just feel empty.

**AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA**

**A/N: There's an update, and I do realize that it's short, but in an effort to update more often (don't say anything!) I'm trying to write shorter, since I've tried almost everything else.)**


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